Crash in S. Indiana Kills 2 from Natl. Capital Wing, Congressional Squadron

Two Civil Air Patrol members, one from the National Capital Wing and the other from the national Congressional Squadron, were killed late Saturday when their plane crashed after experiencing engine failure in southern Illinois.

Majs. Louis R. Cantilena, who was flying the private plane, and Paul F. Schuda died after Cantilena’s Cessna crashed in woods about 9 p.m. near Oldenburg, Indiana, about 40 miles northwest of Cincinnati, according to an Associated Press report. Cantilena’s daughter was also killed, as was one of two dogs in the plane, Indiana State Police said.

According to The Associated Press, State Police Sgt. Wheeles said the Cessna had taken off from an airport outside Columbus, Indiana, while en route from Kansas City, Missouri, to Frederick, Maryland.

Schuda was the National Capital Wing’s standardization/evaluation officer and assistant director of operations. He also served as an instructor at CAP’s Col. Roland Butler Powered Flight Academy at Blackstone, Virginia. He previously served as the Congressional Squadron’s chief of staff from 2006-2012. He joined CAP in March 1998, transferring from the Congressional Squadron to the National Capital Wing in July 2012.

Schuda was director of the National Transportation Safety Board Training Center at Ashburn, Virginia. He previously served as deputy director for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Policy and Special Projects staff and as a professor of chemistry at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Cantilena joined CAP in February 1997. He was a professor of medicine in clinical pharmacology and director of clinical pharmacology and medical toxicology at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.

He also directed a Phase One Clinical Research Unit funded by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S Army and served as a consultant to the National Institutes of Health and the federal Food and Drug Administration.