Newlyweds killed in Branson plane crash were on their way to celebrate holidays

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BRANSON, Mo. — On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration spent the day at a crash site outside Branson, trying to determine the cause of a fatal plane crash.
Keith and Dawn Curtis
Keith and Dawn Curtis were the only people inside the 1968 Piper Cherokee. The newlyweds married just last month; Keith was a newly-minted pilot, and his wife was training to be one herself.
They departed from the Gardner Municipal Airport Sunday evening, shortly before sundown. They were on their way to a family holiday in Branson.
The aviation community — especially those who pilot small planes — is a tight knit one. Keith Curtis and his wife were eager to be a part of it. Keith had his VFR (Visual Flight Rules) rating, and was working on his IFR (Instrument Flight Rules). Dawn was working on getting her license.
At the Gardner Municipal Airport, where Keith and Dawn Curtis departed on their last flight, their first airplane still sits patiently in a hangar. Their black pickup truck still sits in the parking lot.
Dawn and Keith Curtis
Keith and Dawn were in their second plane, a 1968 Piper Cherokee. It crashed just before 7 p.m. outside of Branson Sunday night.
“When I saw the color of the airplane in the footage,” Brent Bitikofer recalled, “I knew who it was.”
Bitikofer is a pilot, and runs the maintenance shop at Gardner Municipal Airport, and said all the pilots there knew Keith.
“He wanted to do things,” said Bitikofer Monday afternoon. “I don’t know about dreamer. I think he was a doer. He had an idea and he was going to do it.”
Keith Curtis ran his own company — KC All American Moving — from his home on Lake Road One in Gardner. …


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