There’s grieving across the South Sunday, after a First Tennessee Bank Regional Director from Jackson, Tennessee, and his family were killed Saturday in a plane crash near Hayden, Alabama.
The family confirms Joseph and Jennifer Crenshaw, along with their two teen children – 10th grader Jacob and 8th grader Jillian – died after a Cessna 210 went down in a wooded area.
Family told Local 24 the four were flying back to Jackson after a spring break vacation at Disney World.
“This is hard on all of our guys,” West Blount, Alabama Assistant Fire Chief Kyle Ellison said. “No doubt this involving a family and children involved as well, those are always particularly hard calls,” Ellison said.
All four people on board lost their lives.
“While they may not be local to this area, this is still a tragedy for our community as well,” Ellison said.
Officials said the plane went down shortly after a mayday call at 2:34 Saturday afternoon. The crash jolted witnesses in the area.
“At first we just thought it was thunder and people started stopping and saying they’d seen debris falling,” Boyd Wisdom said.
Sunday, that debris was still scattered in three different areas for NTSB investigators. They’ll examine a variety of things, including maintenance and inspection records.
“They need every part of the plane and the reason that’s intricate to them is that so they can recreate exactly what happened and how it happened and maybe paint a picture and maybe get the answers here to determine what exactly took place,” Ellison said.
University School of Jackson – where the two teenage plane crash victims attended – will have grief counselors on campus this week to assist students and staff.
A NTSB spokesperson said it should take between 12 and 18 months to determine the cause of the deadly plane crash.
