A 13-year-old boy and his mother were among the six people who died in a small plane crash in Wisconsin not long after the pilot reported that ice was building up on the wings during a thunderstorm.
Rylan Haremza and his 45-year-old mother, Amanda Haremza, from Altoona, Wisconsin, were identified Thursday by the Sauk County Sheriff's office. The other victims who all lived in Wisconsin were Tyler Harvey, 36, of Cadott; Mary Brion, 67, of Nelson; Kayla
Turpin, 39, of Eau Claire; and the experienced pilot and businessman who owned the plane, Ron Riek of Woodville.
Menomonie Airport Commission Chairman Daniel Johnson said he believes everyone onboard the plane were friends but he didn't know the purpose of the flight to Kenosha and back to Menomonie where Riek kept his plane. Johnson paid tribute to Riek, who he has known for decades, at a public meeting Wednesday night.
“He was simply a good man. A highly experienced pilot, and this was simply a tragedy,” Johnson said about the friend he had known for decades, according to Minneapolis TV station KSTP.
Riek carried an airline transport pilot rating on his license, according to Federal Aviation Administration records, which indicates that he had at least 1,500 hours of flying experience and the skills needed to be an airline captain.
Johnson told The Associated Press that Riek had a lot of experience relying on instruments when flying.
“He was an enthusiastic and engaging participant in airport activities, a popular and important member of our small aviation community, and a very active pilot,” Johnson said. Riek built the successful Woodville Warehousing and Distributing logistics company after several years as a trucker. His profile on the company website talks about his love of flying and how he used his plane to visit his customers.
The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation. Its experts will certainly examine the history of icing-related crashes involving Piper PA-46 Malibu planes like the one Riek owned, which was registered at his home address. The agency did a safety study on seven Piper crashes between 1989 and 1991.
Johnson said “the aircraft has a reputation of not doing well in thunderstorms.”
This latest crash is hitting the aviation community around Menomonie hard because just last year four people died in a different plane crash. Riek helped organize a fundraiser afterward to raise money for the three young children of one couple that died.
"This is two fatal crashes in 18 months. We’ve lost a lot of friends,” Johnson said. “This creates a hole in the aviation community.”
The pilot in this week's crash told an air traffic controller about icing on the wings of the Piper PA-46 Malibu as it flew at 24,000 feet (7,315 meters) and requested permission to descend, according to the NTSB. That is a major aviation hazard because even a thin layer of ice can make it difficult for a plane to remain airborne.
Air traffic control approved the descent, and the plane began a right descending turn that increased sharply in rate until communications and data tracking were lost shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday.
The six-seat, single-engine plane was traveling from Kenosha to Menomonie when it crashed in a wooded area near Mirror Lake State Park, not far from the popular tourist destination of Wisconsin Dells. No one on the ground was hurt.
Shortly after the crash, a controller can be heard warning a different plane headed into the area that there is a “heavy and extreme cell” near the Dells area as he directed that pilot to descend to 14,000 feet.
“Some severe icing came out of nowhere from an aircraft. If you pick any of that up, let me know,” the controller said in a recording posted by www.LiveATC.net.
The Wisconsin Dells sells itself as the “Waterpark Capital of the World” because of its high concentration of waterparks. The area drew more than 5 million visitors in 2025, according to state tourism officials.
