Stillwater, Oklahoma — Oklahoma State University women's basketball coach Kurt Budke and assistant coach Miranda Serna were killed when the single-engine plane they were riding in during a recruiting trip crashed near a wildlife management area in central Arkansas.
The university said the pair died in the crash Thursday night near Perryville, about 45 miles west of Little Rock. The Winona Wildlife Management Area is in steep terrain in the eastern Ouachita Mountains, but a cause of the crash was not announced.
In January 2001, 10 men affiliated with the university's men's basketball team died in a Colorado plane crash.
OSU said the plane's pilot and another passenger also died in Thursday's crash. Their names were not released and OSU said they were not associated with the university.
"There were no survivors," the university statement said.
The Perry County Sheriff's Department said the crash occurred just before 7 p.m. about 4 miles south of Perryville. FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford said an immediate search revealed that at least two were dead. The school's statement Friday put the death toll at four.
Lunsford said the plane was a single-engine Piper PA-28.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending investigators, and that it could take nine months to determine the cause of the crash.
OSU hired Budke from Louisiana Tech.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
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