Here is a description of the crash as written by a family member and posted on FB:
Edd has a large Cessna twin-engined airplane with turbo-chargers for extra power and high altitude flying. He was on a business flight, coming home from Kansas City to Houston. He crossed the Texas state line as thunderstorms were rolling across Texas. Big nasty thunderstorms. This is not what you think. Not Edd Hendee. He reads the radar, turns to his passengers and says, "Sorry boys, we are setting down." Careful and thoughtful, procedures well within the safety zone. So they land in a small town in Texas, tie down the big twin engine and head for a motel. And he has the tanks topped off for the next day's flight in case they need to maneuver around more storms. They sleep the night, and have a breakfast. There are two others, a long time friend, and a representative of a vendor where Edd buys the main products for his business. In the right seat , or co-pilot's position is his friend. But before Edd starts the airplane he does a thorough preflight. I have been with him and it is not routine, he pays attention to every detail. It is his job when he is flying. He drains some gasoline from the tanks, check for water, there is none. He walks around the airplane feeling the surfaces, checks the tires, pulls the blocks from the tires, looks for leaks that may have happened during the night and more. Here is what we think we can reconstruct from the flight...About 8:30 Edd starts up the twin turbo charged engines, goes through his preflight checklist (he has flown for years and still goes through a written check list) and every thing checks. Magnetos, trim, flaps, all perfect. They get clearance to roll and lift off for Houston. The weather looks good and Edd double checks his radar on the plane. At about 700 feet above the ground they hit a layer of cloud that is about 800 feet thick. They break out at 1500 feet into the clear just as Edd detects something isn't right. The amount of pressure his engines should be taking in on intake is light and the temperature of his exhaust is too low. Suddenly one engine begins to choke. Fair enough, this happens, he trims up and does what he needs to do if he loses that engine. He has trained for this for years, over and over. The engine dies. It is woking no more.But the "good engine" is showing the same signs and a few seconds later it quits. He is at 2100 feet above the ground and now the airplane becomes a glider. It is a poor glider, it is more like a brick. Edd knows he has to keep his airspeed up so he can control the airplane.There is an old adage in flying, you give up altitude for speed. So he points the nose down to maintain around 95 miles per hour. In a few quick heartbeats, he hits that cloud layer at 1500 feet and he cannot see what is on the ground. He is far enough from the airport that there is no turning around. We heard from the tower that he declared an emergency and was very business like on the radio. That's Edd.At 700 feet he pops out of the cloud, he is losing about 700 feet per minute at that time and gets his first look at his options.Edd is in east Texas. It is loaded with piney woods, the exceptions are small or populated. In fact his chances for survival under any conditions are close to zero. Pilots do not lose two engines at 2000 feet and survive because there are so few options available. Probably most pilots with that little time to make decisions do not do well.Edd has at best a few seconds to choose a landing spot and then he has to get busy making preparations to bring the airplane to the spot and make it happen.Here is what Edd sees...When he sees the ground for the first time, he sees a four lane highway. Even better his airplane is lined up for the highway. No turns. It gets better.During rush hour, there is a long break in the traffic right where he will touch down. What doesn't realize is there are light poles every 300 yards or so.He drops his landing gear and does the very best he can to flare the airplane to slow his vertical drop before they hit. He misses the light poles, hits the highway and bounces crushing his left landing gear. They come down again, the right landing gear collapses and is torn away and lord knows what happens to the nose wheel. But it's gone. They slide down the highway into the median, and there hit wet soil which slows them down quickly.They come to a full stop with the airplane's wing tank barely over the side of the road of oncoming traffic. They are alive.Edd asks his passengers to clear the plane as he shuts down all of the electrical and takes care of the airplane. Finally Edd comes out, slowly, and limps over to the side of the highway and lies down. His back hurts.They are sniffing for fumes in case there is a ruptured tank looking for signs of a fire or explosion. They smell fumes alright, but it isn't gasoline. It smells like kerosene. This afternoon the FAA verified that the airport loaded the airplane with jet fuel (kerosene) instead of aviation gasoline which is very high octane gasoline. Kerosene will not run in an engine or engines like Edd has in that airplane. Edd's airplane cleared the fuel lines of gasoline and then the kerosene hit. Bad news and worse news. When they broke through, it was the hand of God. Edd was care flighted to Houston and is now in the hospital. He shattered a vertebrae into pieces, one of them floated into the spinal canal and had the spinal canal not been large, he would have been paralyzed from the waist down. As it is, they think his body will heal itself entirely in 90 days. The body will consume that piece in the spinal canal.The hand of God.