EDGAR CO., Ill.—Today is a sad anniversary in Paris, Illinois, located in Edgar County.
Rusty Bogue
It was one year ago today that an aircraft being piloted by Rusty Bogue, 33, of Paris, went down in a copse of trees not far from the Edgar County Airport shortly after take-off.
The airplane Bogue was piloting that morning belonged to a Terre Haute man, Bryan Phillips, and was one of five Phillips owned and that Bogue’s company, RSB Aviation, was either housing or maintaining for him at the airport and at another location. Bogue was taking the plane to Terre Haute that morning but experienced serious problems shortly after take-off, the nature of which haven’t been fully explained in the ensuing investigation.
Two of Phillips’ airplanes were then subject of a terroristic fire-bomb/vandalism attack in November of 2013.
Another of Phillips’ planes had been sold, and it then went down in a crash in Montana earlier this year.
Since that time, the final Phillips plane and its location has been kept a closely-guarded secret, as the National Transportation and Safety Bureau (NTSB) has had every resource out and working on the entire situation.
And, since that time, a lot of information has come out about the ongoing harassment Bogue, his wife and his father were experiencing at the hands of the airport authority board, and in particular, then-county board chairman Chris Patrick, who had asked Bogue about a year before the crash to take some illegal steps with switching parts on airplanes, one of them belonging to a bank in Paris on which board Patrick sat.
Bogue hadn’t made the illegal requests public, but Patrick knew that Bogue knew he’d been asked.
Whether that was the impetus behind the harassment as carried out by Patrick, his cohort Adonna Bennett, and former airport manager Jimmy Wells remains a matter of speculation.
Their part, if any, in the vandalism last November also remains a matter of speculation.
One of the Phillips planes, a victim of airport terrorism last November.
However, one thing is certain: the investigation by the NTSB, joined by the FBI, is still ongoing, and the pressure is on.
Those who are griping about how long the investigation is taking need to take a deep breath. These things often take years. Piecing together not only down/burned airplanes is painstaking; but it can be done, and clues can be found. So impatience with any arrests that might come is futile…the investigators have their work cut out for them. They know the circumstances surrounding Bogue’s death, the harassment, the illegal requests Patrick made, the bizarre actions Bennett took…all of it. So for now, we just have to wait. It doesn’t matter that the feds are investigating the armpit of corruption in south-central Illinois (Edgar County)…when conclusions are reached, they’ll be reached. No one will play favorites; the feds are removed from the local and regional politics that have kept corrupt individuals in Edgar out of trouble for so long.
Some day in the future, someone will be held responsible for all of it. Until then, our sympathies to Rusty Bogue’s family on this sad anniversary.