Investigators recovered a body late Monday believed to be NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol’s youngest son. Edward “Teddy” Ebersol perished in a fiery plane crash Sunday morning in southwest Colorado that also killed two crew members and left Dick Ebersol, another son and the co-pilot injured.
Montrose County Coroner Mark Young says the body was discovered about 5 p.m. Monday under the wreckage of the plane, according to NBC affiliate KUSA Denver. Fourteen-year-old Teddy Ebersol had been listed as missing after the crash. Young said the teen had been ejected from the plane and had died instantly.
Ebersol and his oldest son, Charlie, are hospitalized in stable condition and are expected to make a full recovery, NBC said.
The Ebersol family said in a statement Tuesday, “Teddy was a warm, loving, energetic young man. He had developed a wonderfully quirky sense of humor way beyond his years that kept the whole family laughing.”
The family commended Charlie Ebersol for pulling his father from the burning aircraft: “That anyone was able to survive this horrible accident is a miracle, and all of us will forever be inspired by Charlie’s courage and bravery.”
Ebersol and two of his sons were aboard a charter jet that crashed during takeoff Sunday morning near the ski resort of Telluride, Colo., en route to South Bend, Ind., where Charlie is a senior at the University of Notre Dame. The plane, with six people on board, reportedly hit a fence and burst into flames. Ebersol’s wife, actress Susan St. James, was not on the plane; nor were two other Ebersol sons and a daughter.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators on the scene have recovered the cockpit voice recorder and will send it to Washington to be examined. The plane did not have a flight-data recorder. Investigators are trying to determine whether the plane had been de-iced before take off and whether that might have been a factor in the crash.
“Our hearts go out to Dick and Susan on their loss. Words cannot express the depth of a parent’s anguish when a child’s life is abruptly taken,” Bob Wright, vice chairman of GE and chairman and CEO of NBC Universal, said in a statement.
