A plane crash , the second tragedy for a family in four days, has left a father and son dead.
The pair lost their lives after when their Cessna 150 and an Air Force F-16 fighter jet, out of Shaw Air Force Base, collided approximately 25 miles north of Charleston, South Carolina, near the Berkeley County airport, ABC affiliate 13 News Now reports . The Berkeley County Coroner Bill Salisbury identified the victims of the crash as Joseph Johnson, 30, and Michael Johnson, 68, from Moncks County, South Carolina.
The F-16 pilot, Maj. Aaron Johnson, was safely able to eject from the jet and was later taken to Joint Base Charleston to undergo a health assessment.
?”These are very rare,” Lt. Jenny Hyden, a spokeswoman for Shaw, told USA Today . “Military aircraft and civilian aircraft are not usually flying in the same airspace. When military aircrafts are doing any combat maneuvers, they are in a different airspace that civilian aircrafts are not allowed in.”
The plane crash occurred on Tuesday while the family was still trying to cope with another tragedy that had happened four days earlier. Over the holiday weekend, James and Beverly Johnson, the brother and sister-in-law of Michael Johnson, were found dead in their home in Missouri, said Connie Stallworth, the men’s sister.
According to CBS affiliate KMOV-TV in St. Louis, Buchanan County authorities arrested the couple’s 16-year-old grandson and charged him with second degree murder in connection with their deaths, after stopping him for a routine traffic violation. Apparently, the police asked him for a number to reach an adult, and they later discovered that he had sent a text to that same number admitting that he had killed his grandparents.
JUST IN: Pictures from scene of the plane crash at Lewis Field Plantation in Moncks Corner. #chsnews #BREAKING pic.twitter.com/TXO0eNd3ih
— WCBD (@WCBD) July 7, 2015
The police had arrived at the house at about 1:05 a.m. after they received a call to check on the well-being of someone living at the home. When they arrived, there was no one there. However, they soon started checking the nearby fields and discovered the bodies of 72-year-old James Johnson and 76-year-old Beverly Johnson. Both victims had been shot to death. Their bodies were recovered and taken to the coroner’s office in Kansas City for autopsies.
“Obviously this is a very tragic situation for anyone,” Col. Bill Puett said. “The residents in the area are extremely upset, the community is upset. I mean, there is a huge concern when you have an event like this.”
“It’s unbelievable. There just aren’t words to express it. I’m dumbfounded that it happened twice in a few days,” Stallworth said of the second tragedy.
[Photo via Shutterstock]
