Photo: Facebook; Carley McCord/Instagram
A 15-year-old boy and his mother were among the five victims killed in Saturday’sLouisiana plane crash.
As theAdvocatenoted, many of the victims had ties to local family-owned technology companyGlobal Data Systems.
Here are the slain victims based on PEOPLE’s reporting and other news articles in the immediate aftermath.
Gretchen Vincent.Facebook
Gretchen D. Vincent
Her teenage son was a student at Ascension Episcopal School.
Michael “Walker” Vincent
The 15-year-old had some piloting experience, according to a family member.
A 2013 Facebook post from his grandfather Chuck Vincent, the chairman at GDS, shows Walker, who was nearly 10 at the time,sitting in the backseat of a small plane.
“Took my Grandson Walker Vincent for a flight in the Citabria I just bought yesterday, and even though he only getting close to 10, and the last time he flew a Citabria was two years ago, he made two landings and one take off. And that’s a fact jack!” he captioned the post.
Robert Vaughn Crisp II
Crisp, 59, also worked for GDS as theirvice president of operations.
He joined the company in 2008, becoming VP of Sales in 2014, according to the company’s website. Two years later, he took over their entire operations department.
Ian Biggs
Biggs, the pilot, got his commercial pilot certificate in 2005 and was permitted to fly commercial and private flights, according to Federal Aviation Administration records. A note on his file stipulates that Biggs must wear corrective lenses while flying.
Biggs worked for GDS since April 2001, according to hisLinkedIn profile.
Additionally, Stephen Wade Berzas, who has been identified ashaving survived the crash, works as vice president of sales for the company.
Carley McCord/Instagram
Carley McCord
McCord was a sports reporter and the daughter-in-law of Steve Ensminger, who is the offensive coordinator for the LSU football team.
“It is with broken hearts that we share that WDSU lost a beloved member of our team today. Our hearts are with the McCord and Ensminger families at this time,” McCord’s employer, WDSU,wroteon Twitter.
McCord was born and raised in Baton Rouge, and was a graduate of Northwestern State University and Louisiana State University, according to WDSU.
The New Orleans Saints and the New Orleans Pelicans, two teams McCord had worked for as an in-game host, alsoissued a joint statement, praising her for her “utmost professionalism.”
“So sad to hear the news about Carley McCord she was always very excited and happy,” Thomaswrote. “The worst part is I saw her reporting yesterday as I was leaving home in the parking lot. Really sad, life is so short really wish I could do something.”
McCord was also thefirst runner-up in the Miss Louisiana competitionin both 2011 and 2012 andauditioned forThe Bachelorin 2013, reported theTimes.
A spokesperson for the Lafayette Fire Department previously told PEOPLE that the plane was taking off from the airport, on its way to Atlanta, when it crashed around 9:20 a.m. on Saturday morning.
The crash occurred in an “open field” next to a local post office, the spokesperson said, and caused two fires that were “quickly extinguished.”
A cause for the crash has yet to be identified, according toCNN.
source: people.com
