Florence doctor killed in plane crash in Arkansas
A Florence pathologist was killed when his plane crashed near an Arkansas airport Sunday according to local and federal officials.
Dr. John Jobe, 51, departed Florence Regional Airport, where he kept his 1963 Beechcraft 35-B33 single engine aircraft, around 7 a.m. Sunday and was scheduled to touch down at South Arkansas Regional Airport five hours and thirty-five minutes later, but crashed in a wooded area near the airport.
According to the El Dorado News, Union County Coroner Curtis Butterfield identified Jobe as the pilot killed in the crash just before noon on Sunday. He was the only casualty.
The newspaper reported Jobe called in an approach to Runway 4 at 11:40 a.m., around the time he was scheduled to arrive.
John Brannen, a senior air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, told the Florence Morning News Monday that the agency was beginning its investigation into the crash and couldn’t speculate on any cause.
“It’s really too early in the process anyway to make any speculation about what may have caused it,” Brannen said. “He canceled his instrument flight plan while in flight. The information I have is that he canceled the flight plan while he had the El Dorado airport in sight.”
Brannen said it’s not uncommon for pilots to do this, as long as conditions allow. He noted winds were at 17 knots with gusts up to 25 knots and visibility was 10 miles with scattered clouds at 1,900 feet.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, Jobe filed a flight plan to El Dorado from Florence. There was no destination beyond that.
Dr. Tarek Bishara, a partner of Jobe’s at Pee Dee Pathology Associates, said he was headed out west to the Grand Canyon and possibly Santa Fe for a two week vacation.
“To my knowledge, John’s biggest passion was flying,” Bishara said. “He flew quite a bit, oftentimes on the weekend. With his family in Tennessee he would fly frequently home to Tennessee.”
Bishara said Jobe dreamed of flying commercially in the Caribbean after retiring. Jobe was a cycling enthusiast and could be seen working out at the McLeod Health and Fitness Center every morning.
Jobe graduated from medical school at the University of Tennessee, completed residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Roswell Park Cancer Institute and also trained at the University of Wisconsin. His specialty was in general surgical pathology and he was board certified in cytopathology.
Jobe worked at Pee Dee Pathology since 1997 and Bishara said he was, “a quiet guy but a very kind-hearted guy, a good person.”
“John was an integral part of our practice for the past 17 years and was a person of the highest integrity,” Bishara said. “He worked very hard to make sure we did the very best we could for our patients.”
Funeral arrangements are still being planned.
A preliminary NTSB report will be released next week, Brannen said, with a more detailed version out in six months to a year.