CRESCO - One of the passengers on the ill-fated jet that crashed Wednesday was headed to the Mayo Clinic for treatment.

Johnny Fayard's wife, Tanya, said her husband was to receive in Rochester, Minn. Johnny and the other passenger, Robert Paulk, both of Gulfport, Miss., are friends and business acquaintances, she said.

Ironically, Paulk was transported to St. Marys Hospital in Rochester. Fayard, however, wound up at Gundersen Lutheran Hospital in La Crosse, Wis. Both are listed in critical condition.

Fayard, 51, reportedly suffers from reflex sympathetic dystrophy and was scheduled to receive a leg brace. Also known as complex regional pain syndrome, the condition is a chronic neurological syndrome characterized by severe burning pain, changes in bone and skin, swelling and extreme sensitivity to touch.

Tanya Fayard said doctors sedated her husband to prevent additional damage from head and neck injuries suffered during the crash. Fayard operates a moving and warehouse company in Gulfport.

The pilots - Clyde Lewis, 42, and William Eisner, 62, both of Jackson, Miss. - died at the scene. Both were licensed and certified commercial airmen, according to Federal Aviation Administration records.

The plane, a 10-passenger Cessna Citation 560, apparently overshot the runway, according to law enforcement officials. The flight ended along a tree line in a cornfield after the airplane vaulted across Iowa Highway 9.

FAA and National Transportation Safety Board officials resumed efforts Thursday morning to determine a cause for the incident.

Much is still unknown, but local aviation specialists speculate the small twin-engine jet flew into rough weather and that the pilots were attempting an emergency landing at Ellen Church Airfield in Cresco.

"The weather was horrible. It was nasty out there," said Paul Roloff, sales manager with McCandless Aviation in Waterloo.

A storm front moved through Northeast Iowa late Wednesday morning, and the National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning. The weather service in La Crosse also issued a hazardous weather outlook for the area.

Airport officials in Waterloo, Rochester, Dubuque and Mason City issued no ground stops. Technically, the FAA doesn't close airports but a ground stop prohibits aircraft from taking off and can divert incoming flights.

Roloff said rapidly developing storms perhaps forced the plane's pilots to find a close place to land.

"I think the weather was such that they were just trying to get on the ground," he said.

Roloff added that landing at Cresco put the pilots in a "tight spot."

The Cresco airport has 3,000-foot runway, too short for a twin-engine jet that requires 3,500 feet for takeoffs, according to Cessna specifications on its aircraft.

"They've got enough information on that airplane to know the length of the Cresco runway. They knew they were pushing it, but it was probably their best option," Roloff said.

Better choices were available, he said, in Waterloo, Mason City and Dubuque.

"For them to land in Cresco, it had to be an emergency situation. It had to be something serious. You wouldn't do that on a normal day," Roloff said.

FAA officials recovered the plane's flight recorder, which was in plain sight and beeping after the crash, according to Iowa State Patrol officers on scene. Details about the plane's impromptu landing were not available.

FAA records show the plane is registered to Tomco II, which is based in Nashville, Tenn. The company is owned by Dr. Thomas Frist Jr., brother of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Thomas Frist was leasing the craft to GNS Holding pending completion of a sale and was operated by Jackson Air Charter of Jackson, Miss.

According to flight records from Jackson Air Charter, the plane left Jackson, Miss., at 5:55 a.m. Wednesday and made stops in Gulfport, Miss., the Destin and Fort Walton Beach, Fla., airport and Meridian, Miss., before departing Oxford, Miss., at 8:34 a.m.

The plane was scheduled to land in Rochester at 11:02 a.m.

Contact Tom Barton at (319) 291-1570 or tom.barton@wcfcourier.com. The Associate Press contributed to this story.