Five employees of emergency preparedness consulting firm CTEH of North Little Rock were killed Wednesday in a plane crash near Clinton National Airport in Little Rock.
Authorities said the twin-engine Beech BE20 went down around noon, shortly after taking off on a flight from Little Rock to Columbus, Ohio. The wreckage was found just south of the airport near a 3M plant on Walters Road.
There were no survivors. A CTEH official identified those killed as Micah Kendrick, 41, a company safety supervisor; Kyle Bennett, 36, staffing manager; Gunter Beaty, 23, production safety data manager; Glenmarkus Walker, 32, rapid responder; and Sean Sweeney, 64, a pilot employed by the company.
CTEH said the employees were responding to an explosion at an Ohio metals plant this week that killed one worker and sent more than a dozen to the hospital.
The crash occurred as a line of thunderstorms that the National Weather Service said included wind gusts of 40 mph moved through the Little Rock area. The cause of the crash is under investigation.
“We are incredibly saddened to report the loss of our Little Rock colleagues,” said Paul Nony, senior vice president of CTEH, said in a statement. “We ask everyone to keep the families of those lost and the entire CTEH team in their thoughts and prayers.”
The company formerly known as the Center for Toxicology & Environmental Health was founded in 1997. It was acquired by publicly traded Montrose Environmental Group Inc. in 2020. Montrose moved its headquarters from Irvine, California, to North Little Rock the following year.
The Associated Press and Arkansas Business content partner KTHV contributed information to this report.
