{"id":192326,"date":"2010-01-18T00:14:52","date_gmt":"2010-01-18T05:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chicagopressrelease.com\/press-releases\/st-charles-student-killed-in-michigan-plane-crash"},"modified":"2010-01-18T00:14:52","modified_gmt":"2010-01-18T05:14:52","slug":"st-charles-student-killed-in-michigan-plane-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/192326","title":{"rendered":"St. Charles student killed in Michigan plane crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Aurora Beacon-News reports:<\/strong> Emma E. Biagioni, 20, of St. Charles, and David O. Otai, 23 — both students at Hope College in Holland, Mich. — were killed Sunday morning after taking off in a small plane in Allegan County, Mich., a school spokesman said.<\/p>\n

Otai, a licensed pilot, was a Kenyan international student.<\/p>\n

Emergency crews responded at 11:24 a.m. after dispatchers indicated that a small plane made a distress call, but airport radar indicated the plan had gone over the Saugatuck area in Allegan County and disappeared, according to a press release from the Allegan County sheriff’s office. <\/span><\/p>\n

Plane wreckage was spotted in a soybean field, but search efforts were hampered due to dense fog, which limited visibility to less than an eighth of a mile, the release said.<\/p>\n

The two were found trapped in the wreckage and were pronounced dead at the scene, the release said.<\/p>\n

The Allegan County Medical Examiner’s Office had not released the victims’ identification pending family notification as of 7 p.m. Sunday, spokeswoman Holly Lott said.<\/p>\n

However, Renner confirmed the identities of the two students and said Biagioni and Otai were well-known on campus and that Biagioni’s sister, Elizabeth, a freshman at Hope College, was being escorted home to St. Charles Sunday evening.<\/p>\n

Emma Biagioni was a member of the Class of 2007 at St. Charles East High School.<\/p>\n

Otai, a sophomore, was a licensed pilot who flew the small plane to gain flight hours, Renner said.<\/p>\n

Hope College, which is about 2\u00c2\u00bd hours northeast of Chicago, hosted a memorial service Sunday night that drew 1,100 people, Renner said. School had been in session for one week after winter break.<\/p>\n

Karen Patterson, chief editor of the student newspaper, The Anchor, said Emma Biagioni was a junior political science major and a national news editor.<\/p>\n

“Emma was kind, sweet, full of energy,” Patterson said.<\/p>\n

Get the full story:<\/strong> suburbanchicagonews.com<\/a>.
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Read the original article from Tribune News Services<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Aurora Beacon-News reports: Emma E. Biagioni, 20, of St. Charles, and David O. Otai, 23 — both students at Hope College in Holland, Mich. — were killed Sunday morning after taking off in a small plane in Allegan County, Mich., a school spokesman said. Otai, a licensed pilot, was a Kenyan international student. Emergency […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}