Joann Mitchell, center, wipes away tears during Saturday’s vigil. (AP Photo/The New Haven Register, Mara Lavitt)
‘IT’S TOTAL DEVASTATION’: A fragment of the twin-engine plane sits in the wreckage-strewn back yards of the East Haven houses hit in yesterday’s disaster. (ZUMAPRESS.com)
FATHER & SON: Max Henningsgaard,17, and his dad, Bill, who was piloting the plane, were among those killed in the crash yesterday.
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The two children killed in a freak accident when a private plane smashed into a Connecticut house have been identified.
Sade Brantley, 13, and her baby sister Madisyn Mitchell, 1, were killed inside their East Haven home. Their mother, Joann Mitchell, 39, was able to escape after the multi-engine, propeller-driven aircraft flown by former Microsoft exec Bill Henningsgaard, of Washington state, crashed into her home.
Mitchell is devastated, East Haven Mayor Joe Maturo said.
“We took her to a nearby hospital to make sure she’s okay,” Maturo said. “She’s now with friends and family out of East Haven. She’s doing as well as can be expected.”
Sadie’s friend Autumn Hernandez, 12, said Mitchell was protective of her kids.
“Sadie was one of my best friends,” Autumn told The Post. “They were a really tight family. … Sadie and her mom were so close. Her mom was always working as a nurse and it was hard for her because she’s a single mom, so Sadie would babysit her little sister all the time. She loved it though. I’m really going to miss her.”
Henningsgaard and his son, Max, were also killed in the fiery incident. The pair had been flying across country for an East Coast tour of colleges.
The remains of the four victims were recovered late Friday night, East Haven Fire Department Deputy Chief Anthony Moscato told The Hartford Courant.
Henningsgaard and his son had taken off from New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport Friday morning in the 10-seater plane and were headed toward Tweed-New Haven Airport when they suddenly hit the ground just before 11:30 a.m., authorities said.
This wasn’t Henningsgaard’s first crash.
In April 2009, Henningsgaard was flying a small plane from Astoria, Ore., to Seattle when the engine quit and he tried to glide back to the airport. As he wrote 10 days later on a blog post, the plane crashed into a river after a harrowing five-minute descent. He and his 84-year-old mother, a former Astoria mayor, climbed out on a wing and were rescued.
He spent 14 years at Microsoft in various marketing and sales positions, according to his biography on Social Venture Partners website. He was a longtime board member at Youth Eastside Services, a Bellevue, Wash.-based agency that provides counseling and substance-abuse treatment, and led the organization’s $10.7 million fundraising campaign for its new headquarters, which opened in 2008.
A vigil for the victims of the crash was held Saturday night at Margaret Tucker Park.
The family learned the deadly Connecticut crash involved Bill Henningsgaard’s plane through the tail number, said his brother, Blair Henninsgaard, the city attorney in Astoria, Ore.