Cynthia Joy Denney
June 5, 1958 - June 9, 1979
FLORIDA TODAY | June 13, 1979
CRASH CLAIMS SATELLITE BEACH WOMAN
Chicago — Searchers found wreckage, seat cushions and a woman's sandal, but no bodies as they looked for a twin-engine commuter airplane that crashed this weekend into Lake Michigan with two persons aboard, including a Satellite Beach woman.
Chicago fire department divers searched all day Monday and Tuesday, but did not find any more of the wreckage.
A spokesman said the divers will continue looking for the pilot and his female passenger aboard the plane when it went down in a storm Saturday afternoon.
The woman was identified as Cynthia Joy Denney, 21, of 695 Jackson Court, Satellite Beach, fiancée of the pilot, Lee Sechler, 28, of Edgerton, Ohio.
Miss Denney was an elementary education major at the University of Central Florida and was on vacation when the crash occurred. She had attended Brevard Community College. A Satellite High School yearbook lists her as participating in the drill team, softball team, track team and Keyettes, as we as serving as a 10th grade cheerleader.
A memorial service for Miss Denney is scheduled for 10:30 [a.m.] Friday in Capehart Chapel, Patrick Air Force Base, said her father, Lt. Col. Floyd C. Denney.
Divers found a part of the wreckage measuring 10 feet by 10 feet about four miles offshore Sunday morning before high winds and waves forced them to call off the search, a spokesman said.
The spokesman added Tuesday that when divers found the wreckage at the lake's bottom, they marked the area and came in. However, the markers were tossed about by the storm and weren't in the same area when divers returned Tuesday. That problem has set them back a couple of days.
A portion of a wing and an airplane wheel had been found Saturday night about four hours after the crash. Searchers now are using sounding equipment in attempts to locate wreckage. "It's pure speculation. But when that plane hit the water, it broke up in many pieces," Coast Guard spokesman Tom King said. "The impact was so great that it's questionable if anyone could have survived."
Originally Published in Florida Today, 13 Jun 1979
Rest on in Peace, Cynthia.
Cynthia Joy Denney
1958-1979