More on the Kincheloe plane crash

The four Wisconsin residents who died in yesterday's small-plane crash near the Chippewa Correctional Facility in Kincheloe had been on a business trip to Canada, media reports indicate.

The Associated Press is quoting John Nagy, the president of Spancrete Industries Inc. as saying that one of the deceased was his brother Dan and two others were employees of his company.

"We're a family company, and our employees are like our family. That's what we are and that's what we lost today, three family members," John Nagy said.

The Nagy family had a camp in Canada and 30-year-old Dan Nagy, who died yesterday, is reported to have been an avid hunter and fisher.

The family business was started by John and Dan's grandfather Henry in 1946, supplying concrete blocks for the post-war era construction boom.

In 1953, the family brought a German precast concrete manufacturing machine to the United States and over the years expanded significantly in the precast concrete and construction industries.

Tonight's edition of the Soo Evening News quotes an eyewitness named Laura Swain as saying that she was outside her mother's house when the plane, believed to be a twin-engine Piper Aztec, flew overhead at what appeared to her to be a normal altitude.

"I noticed some smoke coming from towards the back... Something didn't look right," she told the newspaper.

The Marquette Mining Journal says that autopsies on the four were to be done today in Canada.

The following news release was issued at 3:21 p.m. today by Michigan State Police:

*********************** The National Transportation Safety Board continues to investigate the fatal crash of a twin-engine plane in Kinross Tomship, Chippewa County. Officials from the Michigan State Police have learned the identity of all four persons on board the aircraft through sources in Wisconsin.

The pilot has been identified through the aircraft flight plan as 23-year-old Nicholas Gerger.

All three passengers on the plane were employed by the Spancrete Group, Inc. headquartered in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Representatives from Spancrete identified the passengers as Daniel Nagy, age 30, James Wehr, age 47 and Michael Wraalstad, age 59.

*********************** More SooToday.com coverage

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