A grandmother, two adult daughters and her grandson were among the six people killed when a small plane crashed in Wisconsin after flying in a thunderstorm, family members said Thursday.
Mary Brion, 67, along with her daughters Kayla Turpin, 39, and Amanda Haremza, 45; and grandson Rylan Haremza, 13, were heading home Tuesday night after surprising her granddaughters at their high school volleyball game.
“My daughters grew up playing (volleyball), and
my wife just loved to go watch the grandchildren,” said Brion's husband, David Brion. “It wasn’t right what happened.”
David Brion said he and his wife used to go to every match that his daughters competed in. Since their granddaughters lived five hours away by car in Salem, they couldn't watch them play very often. They had the opportunity to go this time by plane through one of their son-in-law's pilot friends, Brion said.
“We never had much money, she just wanted to find her joy,” said, of Nelson, Wisconsin. “This trip they were really excited about."
His grandson Rylan Haremza was a “wonderful little kid” who loved hunting, fishing, football and wrestling, Brion said.
The other two victims were Tyler Harvey, 36, of Cadott; and Ron Riek, of Woodville, the experienced pilot and businessman who owned the plane. The victims, all of whom lived in Wisconsin, were identified Thursday by the Sauk County Sheriff’s office.
Menomonie Airport Commission Chairman Daniel Johnson paid tribute to Riek, whom he had 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.
Harvey was a certified flight instructor who worked for Gibson Aviation Services, Johnson said, adding that Riek likely just invited him to ride along on the flight.
The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation and said its investigators found most of the wreckage Wednesday and documented the cabin, cockpit, engines and propellers at the main crash site. With help from volunteers, they plan to search Friday for additional pieces of the plane that may have been scattered through the woods.
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.
David Brion said his wife had called before they took off to tell him that there was a storm, and they might have to go around it.
“I don’t know if they did or not,” he said.
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.
