Seven people killed in Illinois crash of small airplane

(Reuters) - A small private airplane crashed early on Tuesday on approach to a runway at a central Illinois airport, killing all seven people on board including two members of the Illinois State University athletic department, officials said. Torrey Ward, the associate head coach for Illinois State's men's basketball team, and Aaron Leetch, the deputy director of Athletics for external operations, died in the plane crash, the university said. "Words cannot fully express the grief that is felt in the wake of such a tragedy," Illinois State President Larry Dietz said in a statement. "We move between shock and profound sadness." The Chicago Tribune reported that the dead included the partner in a local bar in the Bloomington-Normal area and owner of a meat processing business who had attended the NCAA Final Four championship men's basketball game on Monday night. The airplane had left Indianapolis, about 160 miles to the east just after midnight Eastern Time and crashed near Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington, Illinois, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. All seven people on board were killed, the McLean County Sheriff's Department said in a statement. The sheriff's department declined to identify those killed. The airplane had been due to land just after midnight and a search was launched when it did not report back a landing and was not found at the airport, the sheriff's office said. The FAA identified the airplane as a Cessna 414, which is a twin-engine airplane that carries up to 10 people. The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation, which can take several months to a year. The tower at the airport was closed at the time of the crash and approaches were being handled in the normal course of business by the airport in Peoria, Illinois, officials said. (Reporting by David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Sandra Maler)