FORT PAYNE, AL
A former North Alabama businessman was among 14 people killed in a plane crash in Honduras.
Jim Howell owned Carpet Care in Fort Payne for about 30 years before selling it and moving to Honduras in 2003 to be a missionary.
The minister with Kingdom Hall of Jehovah Witnesses in Fort Payne, Ken Mayo, said Howell and another Jehovah’s Witnesses missionary, Flynn Tomchuk, of Richland, Wash., were killed when the Central American Airlines’ flight went down in Las Mesitas, about 3 miles south of the airport in Tegucigalpa.
Mayo told the Times-Journal in Fort Payne that Howell was a “gentle giant” who would return to Fort Payne each year for a visit.