Five IU music students are dead after the small airplane carrying them crashed just south of Monroe County Airport early Friday morning.\nRobert Samels, Zachary Novak, Garth Eppley, Georgina Joshi and Chris Carducci were killed after their six-seat Cessna crashed while attempting to make a landing late Thursday night.\nAll five victims were students in the Jacob School of Music and were returning home from a community choir rehearsal in Lafayette. Joshi, who is a licensed pilot, was flying the plane. \nThe students were on private business for the trip, said IU President Adam Herbert. The plane is owned by Yatish Air, LLC., and licensed out of South Bend.\nSeveral people who identified themselves as being affiliated with the Jacobs School of Music showed up at the Van Buren Township Fire Station, the command center for the crash investigation, early Friday morning. Jacobs School of Music Dean Gwyn Richards was unavailable for comment Friday because he was consoling the families of the lost students, Herbert said at a press conference Friday afternoon at the fire station.\nEmergency officials said the single-engine plane was traveling from Lafayette to Bloomington late Thursday night when it disappeared from the radar at about 11:40 p.m. That coincided with several calls to the Monroe County 911 dispatcher of a plane in distress near Monroe County Airport. Although the plane had activated the landing lights at the airport, it never made it to the runway.\nInitial attempts to locate the wreckage of the crash on foot were unsuccessful, but Civil Air Patrol search crews picked up an emergency transponder pulse emitted by the plane when they flew over the crash site. \nRescuers -- hampered by fog and wet conditions -- finally found the plane at about 4:15 Friday morning.\nAll five people on board died on impact from blunt force trauma, said Monroe County Deputy Coroner Nicole Meyer. \nAccording to emergency radio reports, the plane was a 1978 Cessna U206G. \nThe plane crashed in thick woods in one piece, Ed Malinowski of the National Transportation Safety Board said. There was no evidence of a fire on board the plane, Malinowski said.\nEight fire departments, three law enforcement agencies and the Civil Air Patrol responded to the incident, said Van Buren Deputy Fire Chief Mike Cornman.\nHelicopters were not immediately able to move into the area because of the inclement weather conditions, Cornman said.\nThe Indiana State police cordoned off the crash site and turned the investigation over to the Federal Aviation Administration and the NTSB. Both agencies were on the scene by Friday afternoon. \nJim Muroski, an FAA investigator, said officials hoped to remove the plane from its crash site by Friday night or Monday morning and store it for further evidence collection.\nMalinowski, an air safety investigator, said he would have a preliminary crash report published by next week and said the investigation should be completed in about six months. As of Friday night, Malinowski said he was looking at pilot error and the weather as two possible causes of the crash.\nIU spokesman Larry MacIntyre said the students were participating in the Bach Chorale group in Lafayette Thursday in preparation for a performance Saturday night.\nSeveral family members of the crash victims visited the wreckage of the plane Friday night with University officials and FAA and NTSB investigators.\n• Carducci, a graduate student mastering in music performance, was a protégée of Distinguished Professor of Music Timothy Noble, according to the IU school of music Web site. Carducci has performed at Carnegie Hall as a recitalist and with the IU Opera Theater throughout his career, earning awards in several acclaimed music competitions and festivals.\n• Samels has been a bass-baritone vocalist in the music school's graduate program, studying along side Distinguished Professor of Music Giorgio Tozzi, according to information published on the Jacobs School of Music Web site. Samels recently performed the part of Marco in the premiere of William Bolcom's "A View from the Bridge" at IU. Last year, he was also honored as a semi-finalist in the Oratorio Society of New York competition.\n• Eppley, a native resident of Wabash, Ind., was a tenor who has performed in many IU opera events, such as "Armor in the Magic Flute," "Peter Grimes" and "A View from the Bridge," according to information provided by the music school. Eppley frequently performed solo vocals and has studied under the Distinguished Professor of Music Tim Noble.\n• Joshi, an Indiana resident and music school graduate student, was the supposed pilot of the small private aircraft. She has been a student of Distinguished Professor of Music Alan Bennett, working toward her master's degree in vocal performance, according to the School of Music Web site. Joshi has participated in many local music events such as the Bloomington Early Music Festival.\n• Novak graduated from Anderson University in 2004. Among other venues, he performed with the Anderson Symphony Orchestra, Lafayette Bach Chorale, and the Carmel, Ca., Bach Festival. In Bloomington, Novak served as the Wesley Choir director, Children's Choir director and worship coordinator at First United Methodist Church. He was pursuing his Master of Music at the Jacobs School of Music, with a major in choral conducting and a minor in voice, where he studied with Brian Horne, according to IU media relations.