Forty years ago today: Montgomery plane crash killed four FBI agents

Joni (Lynch) Konstantelos was 7 and living in suburban Chicago when her mother knelt in front of her to say her daddy, an FBI agent, had been killed in a plane crash.

"Who will walk me down the aisle when I marry?" the little girl asked.

It was Dec. 16, 1982.

Montgomery plane crash: In less than 2 minutes, 'aircraft was essentially out of control'

Earlier that day and 300 miles southeast in Montgomery, Ohio, 22-year-old firefighter Paul Wright had been scrambling to help put out a fire caused by a twin-engine Cessna 411 that had plowed into a bookstore in the city’s downtown.

All six aboard the plane headed to Lunken Airport that morning were dead – including Konstantelos’ father, 35-year-old Michael Lynch.

The other victims were three fellow Chicago FBI agents, a retired Chicago policeman and an admitted bank embezzler who was still in handcuffs when his body was recovered.

By day’s end, Wright, now Montgomery fire chief, would have helped place Lynch and the other dead men into body bags.

Listen to Montgomery's new podcast about the plane crash here.

The embezzler, Carl Johnson, was the reason for the trip that began in the Chicago area.

He’d promised to take the agents and the former cop, who was working with his defense team, to a secret location in the Cincinnati area where he’d buried $50,000.

It seemed like a good bet.

After seven years on the run, Johnson had turned himself in to authorities Dec. 2, 1982, and led the FBI to money he’d buried in Chicago.

He’d taken just over $600,000 from a Chicago bank when he worked as an assistant controller before he disappeared.

Johnson lived in places throughout the country, including Cincinnati, before he came clean.

Mysteries shroud the Montgomery plane crash

But the location of the Cincinnati-area burial spot died with Johnson. Forty years later, no one knows where the money is.

There's another mystery connected to the crash: What caused it?

The National Transportation Safety Board did not investigate the wreck, spokesman Peter Knudson said, because of an exception “involving some government aircraft under specific circumstances.” He referred questions to the FBI.

The FBI website says that the plane co-piloted by agents Robert Conners, 36, and Terry Hereford, 34, apparently encountered altitude read-out problems, was flying at a low altitude and hit some wires before it went down.

When The Enquirer requested FBI investigative records about the crash, the federal agency said it does not know whether any such records ever existed. If they did exist, the FBI would have already destroyed them in keeping with U.S. record retention and disposal laws.

“We heard many different theories on why the plane crashed, but at the end of the day it has always been ‘inconclusive,’ ” Konstantelos said.

“This has been especially frustrating to not know why something happened.”

Kissed kids goodnight and left early the day he died

Konstantelos now works in finance and communications and lives in Naperville, Illinois.

On Dec. 16, 1982, Konstantelos’ father had already left home for the airport when she awoke. He'd kissed his children goodnight the evening before his flight to Lunken.

“Home” was in Woodridge, Illinois, where Konstantelos lived with her father, her 31-year-old mother, her 9-year-old brother and two sisters – one 4 years old and the other 11 months.

Life was a reassuring routine of playing Uno around the dining room table while her dad, who’d built their deck and planted a garden, made homemade ice cream.

Sundays, they went to church as a family.

“Through a 7-year-old's lens, my dad was our protector. When the neighborhood bully stole my new red winter hat, my dad went to his house to get it back,” Konstantelos said.

“When thunder crashed, we ran to him to protect us. When I was too scared to go into the haunted house, he stayed outside with me.  He was easygoing and fun.”

Konstantelos said her family never really talked about her father’s job, and as a child, she was unaware of the danger.

“My mom knew more about what he was doing that day. However, all that my brother and I knew was that he was going to Cincinnati on an airplane but would be back by dinnertime,” she said.

Montgomery firefighters were training when the plane crashed

In 1982, Montgomery firefighter Wright had just four years of experience under his garrison belt.

On Dec. 16 of that year, he was working at a station on Cooper Road, two blocks from where the plane would fall.

“We were training when the plane crashed.  We were on the second floor of the station when one of our firefighters said he just saw a plane go past the front of the station,” Wright said.

“I remember looking out the window on the second floor and seeing a large fireball erupt at the intersection of Cooper (Road) and Main Street. We ran to the trucks and put on our gear and headed to the scene.”

The Sheppard Bookstore – which included some living quarters – was at that intersection and firefighters who responded could see it was ablaze.

Nearby was a broken plane, also on fire and tangled in utility lines it had slammed through.

“A person told me that a man in a wheelchair lived on the second floor of the (building) and was still in there,” Wright said.

“Looking at the scene, it was obvious that no one could have survived the plane crash and fire, so our rescue efforts would need to be to the occupants of the house and store.”

Wright pulled a hose line into the building and tried to work his way to the man on the second floor.

“I had to crawl over some debris and realized it was a small porch roof that had been knocked off the house.  Later we would find that the explosion had shifted the house on the foundation,” Wright said.

As he and other firefighters were going up steps, word came that the man on the second floor had crawled onto the roof and been rescued.

Once outside the building, Wright could see that firefighters, police officers and public works employees from Montgomery and neighboring municipalities had swarmed the scene.

No one on the ground suffered life-threatening injuries.

Property damage had mostly been contained to the bookstore. The plane had missed a nearby school and some gas stations.

Wright remembers paramedics treating a woman who had been pulled from a burning station wagon.

He also remembers being mystified by the arrival of FBI agents.

“I quickly found out that the local agents had heard of the crash and thought it might have involved some FBI agents that were flying to Cincinnati,” Wright said.

“When the fire was out, I assisted with placing the six fatalities in body bags.  A temporary morgue was set up at our fire station for the coroner at the coroner’s request.”

Everyone aboard had died. 'Even Daddy?'

Konstantelos was in class when the plane crashed.

“As I walked home from school, I saw cars parked in front of my house and wondered if we were having a surprise party for my dad,” she said.

“Although it wasn't his birthday, and he was only in Ohio, but that is what went through my mind.”

When Konstantelos got home, her mother seated her and her brother next to each other on the couch.  Her mom told them about the plane wreck and said that everyone onboard had died.

“Our unison response was, ‘Even Daddy?’ She replied yes,” Konstantelos said.

Konstantelos remembers hugging her mother and being at a loss as to what she should do. That's when her mother assured her she would walk her down the aisle when she married.

Sad and somber people began filling the home. Konstantelos felt angry and as though she couldn’t breathe.

“I wanted everyone to leave, my mom to make dinner and my dad to come home,” she said.

President Ronald Reagan called Konstantelos’ mother the next day to offer his condolences.

Her mother asked him to call back later that day to talk to her son, and he did.

Thoughts center on those who died

Years later, Wright and his family would visit the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.

There, they got to see a memorial wall with pictures of all the agents who had died in the line of duty.

Among them were Lynch, Conners, Hereford and 36-year-old Charles Ellington, the fourth FBI agent killed in the 1982 crash.

Their deaths left 13 children fatherless.

Another visitor to FBI headquarters asked a guide at the wall what incident had claimed the most agents’ lives in a single day.

“The guide answered, ‘A plane crash in Montgomery, Ohio.’ My kids quickly pointed out to the guide that I had been on the scene of that incident," Wright said.

Wright says that when he thinks about the crash, his first thoughts do not involve the mangled plane, the bookstore being consumed by flames or emergency workers rushing to save lives.

“Probably the most vivid (of my thoughts concern) the six men who lost their lives that day and that they had left loved ones behind,” he said.

“Wives and kids that would never again see their husband/dad in this life.”

'My dad was a hero'

Five years ago, Konstantelos embarked on a journey of her own. She wanted to get to know her father better and began talking to people who knew him at different stages of his life.

She plans to write a book

Konstantelos said she has learned her father, a decorated Air Force veteran who’d worked five years for the FBI, was calm under pressure, quick with a joke and compassionate.

He believed that good people sometimes made bad choices, she was told. And that while they should be held accountable for their crimes, they also deserved a second chance.

“My dad loved being an agent. He was very proud of his work and felt as though he could make a difference,” Konstantelos said.

“My dad was a hero.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Montgomery, Ohio plane crash in 1982 killed FBI agents, bank embezzler