The twin-engine Cessna 401 went down on Friday afternoon near Chanute, the Kansas Highway Patrol said on their website. The small aircraft landed in a field and skidded about 200 feet before hitting a treeline.
A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday that the pilot had been in contact with air traffic controllers, but there was no distress call.
"There was an altitude change and that was the last transmission," CNN quoted spokesman Peter Knudson as saying.
The aircraft caught fire after the crash.
Texas-based Teen Mania Ministries said the eight-seat plane, manufactured in 1991, was headed for the Acquire the Fire conference in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
It had taken off from an airport near Tulsa, Oklahoma, said Elizabeth Cory, a Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman. Oral Roberts University is based in Tulsa.
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The killed were identified as pilot Luke F. Sheets, 23, Austin G. Anderson, 27, Stephen J. Luth, 22 and Garrett V. Coble, 29, a former instructor in the College of Business and a participant in mission trips, was also killed.
Hannah Luce, 22, was critically injured and admitted to a hospital in Kansas City.