A grandmother and grandfather from Illinois were on their way to celebrate Thanksgiving with their son and grandkids when they were killed in a plane crash.

Patty Kreher, 66, and Joseph Kreher, 64, tragically died when their Piper PA-30 Twin Comanche crashed in North Carolina.

According to reports, the plane was only minutes away from the runway at the Smith Reynolds Airport.

The grandparents had departed from St. Louis Downtown Airport in Illinois and made a stop in Kentucky before the aircraft crashed.

They had been circling the runway before the plane “lost control” and plummeted into the ground.

Pete Wentz of the National Transportation Safety Board gave an update and said that the couple were ready to land before the crash.

“The pilot communicated saying he needed to circle the airport for a second attempt and during the circling maneuver, the airplane lost control and impacted the ground,” he said.

Wentz said that the investigation will look into several factors that could’ve caused the crash.

“We’ll be looking into the environment, what the weather was, and what the impact was on that flight,” he said.

The FAA as well as the National Transportation Safety Board will be involved in the investigation.

Joseph Kreher is a certified flight instruction, according to the National Association of Flight Instructors.

One resident near where the aircraft crashed described the incident.

“I couldn’t tell that it was a plane,” Susan Harrison-Bailey told the Winston-Salem Journal. “There was a lot of smoke … I could see it was smashed into the trees. It landed straight up and down.”

Speaking with WGHP, a grieving family member said that the grandparents were flying into town to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Friends and family started to memorialize the couple.

“It’s just going to be hard for everyone that knew Joe and Patty,” said Freeburg Mayor Seth Speiser.

“I knew Joe and Patty, they had a machine shop off of 159, very well-liked people in the area.”

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