A Minnesota doctor was found dead in the wreckage of a private airplane Thursday morning south of Duluth, more than 12 hours after the flight failed to arrive at its destination in the Twin Cities.
The single-engine plane, bound for the Crystal Airport, was located in a river about 7 a.m. northwest of the runway of the Moose Lake Carlton County Airport following a search and rescue operation, the Sheriff's Office said.
The pilot was identified as Thomas Stillwell, 65, of Plymouth. Stillwell, a well-known urologist associated with North Memorial and Fairview health systems, was recently named a Top Doctor by Mpls.St. Paul Magazine.
He was a Navy veteran who served as a surgical field medic in the Gulf War and had for decades flown to rural communities such as Sandstone, Moose Lake and Grantsburg, Wis., to treat patients.
"I love to fly," he said in a 2016 interview with Minnesota Flyer. "I think being a pilot is part of your genetics. It's somewhere deep in you that, once it gets tapped, it's kind of hard to resist. You must feed this need. If you don't, you're not happy."
Randy Ciche, head of maintenance at the Moose Lake airport, said the plane was routinely used by Stillwell to do medical outreach around the state.
Investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board will work to determine the cause of the crash.
Weather in the area at the time was not ideal for flying, according to the National Weather Service. Rain was changing to heavy snow, dropping visibility to less than a mile, said meteorologist Chris O'Brien.
