Seven hunting companions were on American Airlines Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas, to Washington, D.C. when it crashed with a Black Hawk chopper over the Potomac River on Wednesday. The crash killed 67 individuals, including all plane passengers and crew on both flights.
The seven hunters on aircraft 5342 were returning after a waterfowl hunt with Fowl Plains Outfitters, situated in Great Bend, Kansas. The males lived in the D.C. region and were hunting with a group of ten friends. According to the Wichita Eagle, three crew members elected to drive the 1,300-plus miles home with their duck hounds and shotguns.
“We have always stated that our clients are more than friends. They are family. “We lost [seven] family members in the horrific plane crash last night,” according to a message posted Thursday on Fowl Plains’ Facebook page. “We’ve had the opportunity to hunt with seven family members in recent years. We spent the last week sharing the blind, laughing, chatting about our families, and sharing memories. We’re completely heartbroken. Please pray for the families, friends, and the three other hunters in the group who were driving home. “Heartbroken is an understatement.”
The seven men who perished are Jonathan “Jon” Boyd, 40; Tommy Clagett, 38; Alexander “Alex” Huffman, 34; Steve Johnson, 45; Charles “Charlie” McDaniel, 44; Jesse Pitcher, 30; and Michael “Mikey” Stovall, 40. Most of them were fathers.
According to the Eagle, some of the men were return patrons of Fowl Plains, and this year’s vacation included duck and goose hunting as well as a pen-raised pheasant shot. Fowl Plains posted hunting images of the men, including one of Stovall with a stud bull pintail and nine others standing beside a log stacked high with snow geese, specks, and Canada geese. It’s not immediately obvious whether the photographs are from this week or previous seasons. Kansas’ duck season concluded on Sunday, while goose seasons remain open.
Chase White, the owner of Fowl Plains, told the newspaper that they had at least been “able to do something for the last five or six days that they all loved together.” When Outdoor Life called White on Friday, he declined to provide any additional comment out of respect for the men’s families.
Many of the guys had been friends since boyhood, and four were members of the UA Steamfitters Local 602, which represents heating, air conditioning, refrigeration, and piping workers.
Johnson was a member of the 602 and a frequent competitor in the White Marlin Open, one of the largest billfishing events in the country. In August, two of the anglers on Johnson’s boat, the Ctrl+Alt+Del, won a daily prize in the Open for two tuna weighing 178.5 and 154.5 pounds. Captain Johnson and his team were eventually awarded a payment for $75,850.
Local chapters of Ducks Unlimited, Delta Waterfowl, NWTF, and other organizations, including Maryland-based Benelli USA, have formed or contributed to a separate GoFundMe page for the hunters’ families. A confirmed GoFundMe page has been established to assist the relatives of crash victims, including a fund for Stovall, who is survived by his wife and kid.
“There was seven wonderful guys there,” Stovall’s mother, Christina Stovall, told WINK News. “Mikey did not have one enemy…” He was the life of the party. “He loved everyone.”
Leave a Comment