By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
A small jet carrying a former missionary, a church deacon and three businessmen crashed in a wooded area in Oklahoma shortly after takeoff, killing all five people aboard.
The cause is under investigation, but some witnesses said it appeared a bird was sucked into one of the Cessna 500's engines before the airplane went out of control Tuesday afternoon and crashed about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from Wiley Post Airport in Oklahoma City.
A friend identified the pilot and co-pilot as Tim Hartmanand Rick Sandoval. Hartman was a deacon at the South Yukon Church of Christ, while Sandoval spent 10 years as a Church of Christ missionary in Brazil before returning with his family to his western Oklahoma hometown.