BREAKING: DeQuincy High grad killed in Maine plane crash

Published 1:50 pm Wednesday, January 28, 2026

Six people — including a DeQuincy High School graduate — died when a business jet crashed during takeoff as a snowstorm moved in and visibility diminished in Maine Sunday night.

The Bombardier Challenger 600 flipped over and burned on takeoff at Bangor International Airport around 7:45 p.m. Sunday night as the nation’s massive winter storm was beginning to reach the area.

An audio recording of air traffic controllers posted by www.LiveATC.net includes someone saying “Aircraft upside down. We have a passenger aircraft upside down,” about 45 seconds after a plane was cleared for takeoff. First responders arrived less than a minute later, airport director Jose Saavedra said.

Experts say the weather and questions about whether ice accumulating on the wings kept the plane from getting airborne — as has happened at least twice before on that plane model — will likely be an initial focus by the National Transportation Safety Board. However, the agency will consider all possible factors.

“You can count on the fact that NTSB is going to look very closely at this,” said John Cox, who is CEO of Safety Operating Systems.

The airport said Monday afternoon there were six people aboard, according to the flight manifest, and all died. Earlier in the day, the Federal Aviation Administration had said seven died and one was injured but warned the numbers were subject to change, and the agency defers to local authorities.

Lakewood Church in Houston, run by Joel Osteen Ministries, confirmed on Tuesday that longtime employee Shawna Collins, 53, was among those killed. Collins’ social media posts show her work organizing parties and events in Italy, Hawaii and elsewhere, for clients that included Arnold and Itkin Trial Lawyers, the Houston law firm whose co-founder is listed on the plane’s registration.

Collins is a 1990 graduate of DeQuincy High School.

“Everybody loved her. She just had that kind of personality,” church spokesperson Donald Iloff Jr. told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Collins, who was married with children and grandchildren, had also been helping plan her daughter’s wedding set for this year, Iloff said.

“She was very good at it. Everybody wanted her to plan her events for them,” he said.

The church, in a statement, called Collins “a light that brightened our days.”