Preliminary autopsy results show four Plymouth County residents who died in a small plane crash in central Iowa earlier this month were suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.
The Iowa State Medical Examiner’s Office report said all the victims died from “multiple blunt force injuries in the setting of carbon monoxide toxicity.”
The crash happened the night of November 9th after passengers in the plane reported that the pilot had had an apparent heart attack and that a student pilot was going to try an emergency landing.
Searchers found the wreckage the next morning in a cow pasture southwest of Guthrie Center, about 50 miles west of Des Moines.
Killed in the crash were the pilot, 49-year-old Edward Ralph Anderson, 36-year-old Patrick Kellen and 15-year-old Samantha Clark, all of Le Mars, and 28-year-old Tyler Douvia, of Merrill.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash.
