SPOKANE, Wash. — A Spokane couple doing missionary work in Africa were killed in a plane crash recently in Zambia.
Jay and Katrina Erickson had been in Zambia since February, working at a hospital on the Zambezi River about 400 miles upstream from Victoria Falls.
The Chitokoloki Mission Hospital said Jay Erickson was flying a six-seat Cessna on Saturday with his wife on board after transporting a nurse. The plane hit an electrical pole and crashed into the Zambezi River near the town of Zambezi.
The Spokesman-Review reported the Ericksons will be buried at the mission.
Their daughters, 2-year-old Marina and 1-year-old Coral, had stayed behind at the hospital. Katrina Erickson's parents, who live in Wisconsin, are preparing to travel to Zambia with Jay Erickson's mother to reunite with their granddaughters, said Pastor Ron Ulmer of Hillyard Baptist Church on Monday.
The couple, both in their late 20s, met at Moody Bible Institute in Spokane and were married in 2008. They traveled to Zambia in late February to begin a yearlong mission to transport food, medical supplies, doctors and missionaries between the 150-bed mission hospital and other remote outposts.