As Kelsey struggles to come to terms with her loss, she is comforted by her parting display of affection and one final photograph she took with her dad and brother on their way out to Illinois.
When Kelsey Lewis left her father and brother on the tarmac of an Illinois airport as they prepared to board their private plane, she felt unusually compelled to give them both a hug.
She could never have imagined that it would be her last opportunity to hold them and that in a matter of hours the experienced fliers would both be dead.
Her father, Jimmy Don Lewis, 48, and brother, Brayden Ty Lewis, 22, were both killed on their way home from watching a Cardinals game when the Beechcraft Baron 55 aircraft Jimmy was piloting hit a patch of bad weather and plunged from the sky.
Now, Kelsey has told the Daily Mail their tragic decision to unknowingly fly right into the heart of a storm may have been caused by a glitch in the plane’s weather tracking system.
She explained that the software was 30 minutes off when they flew on Friday night, erroneously leading them to believe they would ‘hit the gap’ between the storm and be able to fly safely home.
But as the clock struck 10.48pm the small, private plane lost contact. Police believe based on flight tracking information that the pair attempted to turn the aircraft away from the storm, but ended up in a ‘descending spiral.’
As Kelsey struggles to come to terms with her loss, she is comforted by her parting display of affection and one final photograph she took with her dad and brother on their way out to Illinois.
‘We took a picture, and that was…that was our last time we saw him, and our last picture together,’ she told the Daily Mail while choking back tears.
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Kelsey Lewis, her fiancé, and her father and brother on the way to the Midwest. Kelsey and her fiancé (back row) would drive home after picking up a new car in Missouri, while her father and brother flew back
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However, Jimmy Don Lewis, 48, and Brayden Ty Lewis, 22, never made it back to Oklahoma, as they hit bad weather near Waterloo, Illinois, causing their plane to spiral, police said
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The image shows Jimmy in the pilot seat, next to Brayden with Kelsey and her fiancé in the back seat on their way to Illinois.
The group had flown out together from the Lewises home in Siloam Springs near the Oklahoma-Arkansas border so that Kelsey and her fiancé could pick up a new car in Illinois.
While the couple chose to drive back, Jimmy and Brayden opted to stay on to watch a Cardinals baseball game from which they ultimately never returned.
The aircraft was only in the air for 22 minutes before it went down, according to Kelsey.
‘Half of me wishes we would have driven, but I know that they would have flown anyway after hearing about the Cardinals game and everything else, they would have done it anyway,’ Kelsey said.
Chillingly, Kelsey recalled how she was also unusually concerned with checking their flight details.
‘That whole night, I don’t know why, but I checked the plane status for when they would take off,’ she told The Daily Mail.
Now, the photo and the hugs she gave them both will be something Kelsey treasures forever.
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Kelsey (middle), her mother Jill (second right), and her brother’s girlfriend Payton (far left) began calling police departments in Illinois in hopes that someone would know where their whereabouts were. They were told around 10.30am that the pair were found dead
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Brayden often posted photos of his trips on his social media, including a recent one with his girlfriend Payton
‘In my mind, I cherish it, because it was the last good times I had with my brother and my father,’ she said.
‘I told him I loved him, and I told him to please be careful,’ Kelsey added of her father.
The plane was expected to land around midnight at the Siloam Springs Municipal Airport in Arkansas, where Kelsey’s mom Jill waited, hoping that the plane would arrive safe and sound.
When it didn’t, Kelsey, her mom and her brother’s long-term girlfriend, Payton, began contacting ‘everyone to figure out where they were’ and ‘why their plane lost contact.’
Due to flight tracking data, they knew the plane was last seen near Waterloo, Illinois.
Between 1 and 2am, they started contacting police departments and sheriff’s offices, hoping someone had news of their whereabouts.
Eventually, they contacted the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department to report a potential plane crash.
Sometime later, the three of them were asked to come up to the station.
