Plane Crashes En Route to Teen Mania Conference

CHANUTE, KAN. (AP) – An Oklahoma newspaper is reporting three recent graduates of Oral Roberts University and a former business instructor were killed when a small airplane crashed in Kansas. The Tulsa World reports the plane was headed to an event known as “Acquire the Fire,” organized by Smith County-based Teen Mania. The paper says a fifth person, Hannah Luce, was badly injured when the twin-engine Cessna crashed about 4:30 Friday afternoon northwest of Chanute. Luce, also an Oral Roberts graduate, is the daughter of Teen Mania president and founder Ron Luce, who serves on the ORU board of trustees.

The Kansas Highway Patrol identifies the dead as Luke Sheets, 23, of Ephraim, Wis., who was flying the plane; Austin Anderson, 27, of Ringwood, Okla.; Garrett Coble, 29, of Tulsa, Okla.; and Stephen Luth, 22, of Muscatine, Iowa. National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson says the eight-seat plane departed left Tulsa headed to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and lost contact with air traffic control shortly after getting permission to descend to a lower altitude.