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2 Illinois State Univ. Athletic Officials Among 7 Dead In Plane Crash

The associate basketball coach and the deputy athletic director of Illinois State University were two of seven killed in a plane crash near Bloomington, Ill., in the early hours of Tuesday.

The university said Torrey Ward and Aaron Leetch were on a Cessna 414 that was returning from Indianapolis after the NCAA basketball championship game.

"Words cannot fully express the grief that is felt in the wake of such a tragedy. We move between shock and profound sadness," university President Larry H. Dietz said in a statement. "At times like these we may even question our deeply held beliefs and wonder what the future will hold."

The Chicago Tribune has a bit more on the situation surrounding the crash:

"The plane left the Indianapolis airport around 11 p.m. Monday and hit heavy fog over central Illinois, authorities said. Around 12:15 a.m., radar contact with the plane was lost, according to the sheriff's office.

"A search was launched and a Bloomington police officer discovered the wreckage in a field northwest of the airport, the office said. 'It was determined that there were no survivors,' it said in a statement."

The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the cause of the crash.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.

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Federal funding is gone.

Congress has eliminated all funding for public media.

That means $2.1 million per year that Connecticut Public relied on to deliver you news, information, and entertainment programs you enjoyed is gone.

The future of public media is in your hands.

All donations are appreciated, but we ask in this moment you consider starting a monthly gift as a Sustainer to help replace what’s been lost.