Austin Hatch, a 16-year-old basketball standout from Fort Wayne, Indiana and U-M basketball recruit for the 2013 class is in critical condition after surviving the second plane crash of his young life.
Hatch is currently in a Northern Michigan Hospital after a Friday evening crash that killed his father Dr. Stephen Hatch, and his stepmother, Kim. Austin and his father who was also a pilot survived a 2003 crash that ended up killing his mother and two siblings.
“He never talked about (the previous crash) one time,” said Dan Kline, the basketball coach at Canterbury School in Fort Wayne, Ind. “I’m sure he carried it inside.”
Austin, who is currently a junior at Canterbury, committed to playing at the University of Michigan earlier this month, the same school in which his mother and father attended.
“We are saddened to hear about another tragedy that has affected the Hatch family,” Michigan coach John Beilein said in a statement. “Austin needs as much support right now as possible and I know he will be in the thoughts and prayers of the Michigan family during this difficult time.”
The Hatches were returning to a summer home on Walloon Lake in Michigan’s northwestern Lower Peninsula where Stephen Hatch and his brothers all owned property. The single engine plane the family was flying in apparently hit a garage near the Charlevoix Municipal Airport. This was the same home the family was returning from in 2003 when Austin Hatch’s mother and siblings lost their lives in a crash in Indiana.
Source: ESPN.com
