Plane crashes occupy a strange place in our collective imagination. Musicians, politicians, actors, and other celebrities seem to die to a disproportionate degree in plane crashes. Crashes are almost exotic, by which I mean unusual or mysterious. How many times have you heard someone say you’re more likely to die in a car than in a plane? So we can safely say crashes are unusual. Furthermore, because the exact cause of crashes is so often unknown, they’re also mysterious.
What’s especially surreal is meeting someone who had a relative on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11. Then the exotic becomes personal. Suddenly a crash is not a distant tragedy mourned for one news cycle. The news now links us to real lives. Two other crashes I have learned about in the last few years have had this exact effect on me as well.
After living somewhere for several years, you learn local customs, habits, and lore. You learn the stories that have shaped the lives of people, including their dreams, aspirations, and fears. I minister in the St. Louis area. If you ask the average Missourian about plane crashes, they’ll no doubt point to October 2000. It was in the midst of a competitive election that the state’s sitting governor, Mel Carnahan, died in a plane crash. He was flying to a campaign event as part of his run for the United States Senate.
Just weeks later Carnahan, though deceased, defeated the incumbent, Senator John Ashcroft. As many readers will know, the defeated Ashcroft would be selected a year later to become the U.S Attorney General and help President George W. Bush guide our country through the aftermath of 9/11.
History is strange like this. Tragedies fill human life, and yet God, in His strange providence, weaves them into a larger tapestry. It does not mean that every tragedy brings about some clear-cut greater good. This is simply to say that tragedies befall all of us, impact us in ways difficult to measure, yet God remains present with us. He did the same for four churches and families on September 17, 1980.
The Lesser-known Crash
While most Missourians think first of the Carnahan crash, some St. Louisans (especially Free Will Baptists) think of three pastors who met an untimely death nearly forty years ago. Four pastors were on a small private plane returning from a pastor’s seminar in Kansas City. The passengers included Russell Spurgeon, Lawrence Thompson, Bill Lombard, and Kenneth Spilger.
Spurgeon was flying the plane and was considered to be a capable amateur pilot. More significantly, he was pastor of Trinity Free Will Baptist in the Bridgeton community. Free Will Baptist historian Keith Garrison notes that Spurgeon was considered by many to be a visionary leader.[1] At age forty-seven, in the prime of his life, the Lord took him.
Lombard was pastor of First Free Will Baptist in O’Fallon, another St. Louis area church. Lombard, though young (36), was highly regarded by his church and community. He had been serving his church over ten years at the time of the crash. He also served on the State Home Missions Board.
Thompson, age fifty-five, was pastor of Oak Hill Free Will Baptist in Union, about fifty miles southwest of St. Louis. Thompson was a highly regarded pastor, serving on the State Home Mission Board. He had only been at his church 13 months when he was taken.
Spilger is unique for three reasons. First, he was the youngest onboard (age 30). Second, he was the only non-Free Will Baptist in the crash. Third, and most notably, he was the sole survivor. Spilger’s account is the only eyewitness one we have to the tragedy itself and to the hurdles in overcoming the physical, psychological, and spiritual trauma engendered by such an event.
So what happened in those midnight hours of September 17? Just two miles away from the Spirit of St. Louis Airport, Spurgeon had been in radio contact with the airport tower.[2] This was literally the final leg of the 250-mile flight from Kansas City. At this point no problems were reported. However, the weather wasn’t ideal with rain and storms in the area. Rev. Glenn Rehkop, who had declined the offer to fly with the pastors that night, told me that he looked out his window that very evening and thought to himself, “Well I’m glad I didn’t end up taking that trip after all.”
While details are scant and accounts differ slightly, what is known is that just short of the airport, the single-engine Grumman Tiger struck a tree. According to one initial report, “the plane then fell into high voltage wires, plummeted into a ravine, and burned. Officials said all three ministers were thrown from the wreckage.”[3] However, this latter detail seems to have been inaccurate. Spilger, the lone survivor, was ejected from the plane before it hit the ground, just after a tree limb ripped open the fuselage[4]. Though Spilger doesn’t remember it, the original investigators believed that he pulled the other men from the wreckage, though they were already dead.[5]
Regardless of the precise cause of the crash, three wives were instantly widowed. Families lost fathers. Three churches lost shepherds. And the Spilgers prayed that God would spare Ken.
Those Left Behind
Space doesn’t permit a full exploration of the full aftermath of this fatal crash. However, I want to mention a few sources that offer valuable spiritual perspective on the events of that September night.
Glenn Rehkop
Rev. Glenn Rehkop is one of my predecessors here at Grace Free Will Baptist Church in Arnold. He was very close friends with several of the men in the crash. More than once I have sat on his couch and heard him recount how close he came to being on the plane with his friends. His late wife, Evelyn, had ultimately persuaded him to skip this trip. Naturally, when Rehkop received the news of what had befallen his friends, it shook him to his core.
Listening on multiple occasions to Bro. Rehkop recount this experience always makes me think of what biographers and confidants of President Reagan said of him following the assassination attempt on his life. They note that he was more convinced than ever that he had a purpose to fulfill. I’ve heard echoes of that sentiment in Rehkop’s words. He realized that even if he had no divine account for why his friends had died, his own preservation only reinforced his sense of purpose and of the gratitude with which he should live.
The Spilgers
Ken and Beth Spilger have done a tremendous service by recounting how the crash transformed their life and ministry. They’ve done so in their page-turner Plucked from the Burning: Embracing God’s Purpose (I strongly encourage readers to purchase a copy).[6] With great candor, Pastor Spilger describes how God used the anguish of surviving such an ordeal to change his perspective and to teach him, his family, and his church powerful spiritual truths. He still pastors today at Grace Baptist in St. Louis.
Though pastoral ministry is filled with many difficult situations, one of the most difficult is visiting the burn ward at the hospital. Spilger knows this, too, from firsthand experience, as he endured third degree burns over thirty percent of his body. These profound injuries required extensive skin grafts, surgery, and months of therapy. In reality, healing from such a brutal accident took years not months. However, as Spilger’s book explains, learning to trust in the Lord and become like Him has been his most intense and lifelong pursuit.
The Churches
Who can imagine losing a pastor in such a manner? Speak to a member in a church that has experienced such a tragedy, and the heartache is palpable. “It was the most devastating thing I’ve ever seen for a church,” remarked Harold Bailey, long-time member of Trinity Free Will Baptist. After Bro. Spurgeon died, “that first Sunday back was so somber. . . .You just can’t imagine what it’s like to lose someone like that. It’s just unreal.”[7]
Spurgeon had been the founding pastor of Trinity, but the other pastors were equally beloved by their congregations. Though several church libraries today are named in honor of these men, plaques on a wall cannot fully convey how the ministries of churches were forever impacted.
Conclusion
We never know what will transpire when we pack our bag for our trip, but God does. God’s knowledge of all of our tomorrows should bring us comfort, especially when we consider how fragile life is. Though the crash of 1980 already lives on in the memories of many, my hope is that this brief article reminds a new generation of layman and pastors not only of the fragility of life but also of the faithfulness of God.
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[1]Keith Garrison, Upon this Rock: Missouri State Association of Free Will Baptists 100 Years (Lebanon: Missouri State Association, 2014), 29
[2]“Three Missouri Ministers Killed in Plane Crash,” Contact (October, 1980): 20.
[3]Ibid.
[4]Ken and Beth Spilger, Plucked from the Burning: Embracing God’s Purpose (St. Louis: Reflections, 2015), 28
[5]Spilger, Plucked from the Burning, 29.
[6]One of the most moving aspects of this book is its inclusion of testimonials from the surviving wives. They tell of their lives before and after the crash, and how God faithfully preserved them.
[7]Telephone interview with Harold Bailey, conducted August 27, 2018. I was also able to speak to Joe Hill, a deacon at the O’Fallon Church about his close personal relationship with Pastor Lombard. Interestingly, Hill tells of Lombard bringing him into his study just days before his flight. Lombard shared with Hill some church-related information he would need to be aware of in the event that he did not return from his trip. Telephone interview, conducted September 7, 2018. This same sense of foreboding characterized several of the men who were in the crash. In Spilger’s book, two of the wives share some bizarre comments and dreams that took place prior to the crash that sound like what we would describe as premonitions.
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