A prominent local warehouse owner died along with five other people when the plane he owned crashed in Wisconsin after ice built up on the wings during a thunderstorm.
Menomonie Airport Commission Chairman Daniel Johnson said at a public meeting Wednesday night that longtime pilot Ron Riek, who flew out of his airport regularly, died in the crash. Authorities have not yet released the names of the five others who died.
“He was simply a good man. A highly experienced pilot, and this was simply a tragedy,” Johnson said about the friend he had known for decades, according to Minneapolis TV station KSTP.
Riek carried an airline transport pilot rating on his license, according to Federal Aviation Administration records, which indicates that he had at least 1,500 hours of flying experience and the skills needed to be an airline captain.
Johnson told The Associated Press that Riek had a lot of experience relying on instruments when flying.
"He was an enthusiastic and engaging participant in airport activities, a popular and important member of our small aviation community, and a very active pilot," Johnson said. Riek built the successful Woodville Warehousing and Distributing logistics company after several years as a trucker. His profile on the company website talks about his love of flying and how he used his plane to visit his customers.
The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation. Its experts will certainly examine the history of icing-related crashes involving Piper PA-46 Malibu planes like the one that Riek owned that was registered at his home address. The agency did a safety study on seven Piper crashes between 1989 and 1991.
Johnson said “the aircraft has a reputation of not doing well in thunderstorms.”
This latest crash is hitting the aviation community around Menomonie hard because just last year four people died in a different plane crash. Riek helped organize a fundraiser afterward to raise money for the three young children of one couple that died.
"This is two fatal crashes in 18 months. We’ve lost a lot of friends,” Johnson said. “This creates a hole in the aviation community.”
The pilot in this week's crash told an air traffic controller about icing on the wings of the Piper PA-46 Malibu as it flew at 24,000 feet (7,315 meters) and requested permission to descend, according to the NTSB. That is a major aviation hazard because even a thin layer of ice can make it difficult for a plane to remain airborne.
Air traffic control approved the descent, and the plane began a right descending turn that increased sharply in rate until communications and data tracking were lost shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday. The six-seat, single-engine plane was traveling from Kenosha to Menomonie when it crashed in a wooded area near Mirror Lake State Park, not far from the popular tourist destination of Wisconsin Dells. No one on the ground was hurt.
The Wisconsin Dells sells itself as the “Waterpark Capital of the World” because of its high concentration of waterparks. The area drew more than 5 million visitors in 2025, according to state tourism officials.