toledoblade.com --

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - An Indiana University student was piloting a small plane through dense fog late Thursday night when the aircraft crashed, killing herself and four friends aboard, including a former Monroe, Mich., man, officials said yesterday.

Among the passengers killed in the crash was Chris Carducci, 27, formerly of Monroe, who graduated in December from Indiana University with a master's degree in music performance. Mr. Carducci did his undergraduate work at Bowling Green State University. He lived in Bloomington.

He was a 1996 graduate of Monroe High School, where he played on the football team coached by his father, Ralph Carducci, who is also the high school's principal. The five current or former graduate students from Indiana University's school of music were returning from a rehearsal for a community concert in West Lafayette, about 90 miles north of campus, when the plane disappeared from radar about 11:40 p.m. Thursday.

Georgina Joshi, who had studied at the Royal College of Music in London, piloted the single-engine 206 Cessna. Investigators said they did not know yet how much flying experience she had.

In addition to Mr. Carducci and Ms. Joshi, 24, of South

Bend, the students killed in the crash were identified as Zachary Novak, 25, of Anderson, Ind.; Robert Samels, 24, of Medina, Ohio, and Garth Eppley, 25, of Wabash, Ind.

"This is a devastating loss that is deeply felt on the Bloomington campus," university President Adam Herbert said at an afternoon news conference.

Teary-eyed students consoled each other outside the school of music administration building.

"To lose one student, let alone five, is such a tragedy. It will have a big impact on all of us," said Sam Page, a 19-year-old freshman from Columbus majoring in performance bassoon.

Investigators were searching for what caused the plane to crash in the heavy fog. But without a cockpit recorder and with no distress call from the plane, answers were few.

The badly damaged craft was found upside down in dense woods just south of the airport a couple miles west of Bloomington. The fuselage appeared to be in one piece, and the landing gear was still attached, but the wings were damaged.

The plane hit nose-first, said Ed Malinowski, an air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board.

Several 911 callers described "the spit and sputtering of an airplane," said Mike Cornman, deputy fire chief in Van Buren Township, and some reported a loud boom.

The music school, with about 1,600 students, is one of the nation's largest, with programs in opera, jazz, orchestral music, and early music. Still, the university president said it has "a family kind of environment."

Mr. Carducci was living in Bloomington advancing his music career, said his mother, Rainelle Carducci. He wanted to be an opera singer, she said.

"He loved music his whole life," she said. "He just loved classical music and opera." A baritone, Mr. Carducci was already an accomplished performer. He appeared at Carnegie Hall for the Marilyn Horne Foundation's The Song Continues in 2005.

He was a resident artist with the Toledo Opera and worked with the Carmel Bach Festival, Michigan Opera Works, and the Perrysburg Symphony. He had sung with the Indiana and Detroit opera groups, his mother said.

Mr. Carducci graduated from BGSU in 2002 with a bachelor's degree in music in education with a choral emphasis. He won BGSU's Dr. Marjorie Conrad Peatee Art Song Competition twice.

Mr. Samels also received a bachelor's degree from BGSU and had recently appeared in A View from the Bridge. He would have sung in three roles this summer as a member of the Wolf Trap Opera Company. In 2004, Mr. Samels performed in the New York premiere of Antigone. In 2005, he was a semifinalist in the annual competition of the Oratorio Society of New York.

Mr. Carducci played the trumpet in jazz bands in junior high and high school. He also sang swing-style songs with the high school jazz band, Mrs. Carducci said. He started playing the piano in first grade.

Mr. Carducci had been one of about 30 people chosen out of a group of 1,000 to perform this summer at the Central City Opera 2006 Summer Festival in Colorado as part of the apprentice artist program for singers between 24 and 30, she said.

"We were just so terribly proud of his talent and his accomplishments and his music," she said.

The family became concerned when they heard about the crash and were pretty sure he was on that plane. It was confirmed later yesterday. Mrs. Carducci said the family was shocked.

She said her son, who had just visited his family in Monroe last week, was a fun-loving person.

"He had a wonderful sense of humor, very witty," she said. "He was a very a passionate person for his friends and his family.

"We are going to miss him terribly."

Mr. Carducci leaves behind his parents and younger brother David, 25.

About 700 people attended a memorial service last night near the IU campus at First United Methodist Church, where Mr. Novak was worship coordinator and directed the Wesley choir and children's choirs.

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