A private plane carrying skydivers crashed in the US state of Missouri on Sunday, killing all 12 people on board, authorities said.
The crash occurred near the Butler Memorial Airport — which lies 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Kansas City — shortly after the plane took off.
The plane was operated by Skydive Kansas City.
“Tragically, all 12 individuals aboard lost their lives in the accident,” the skydiving company said in a statement.
The pilot of the plane was among those killed.
What do we know?
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) identified the aircraft as a single-engine Pacific Aerospace P750.
Dennis Jacobs, the acting airport manager and Bates County emergency management director, told news agency Reuters that the plane took off around 11:20 a.m. CT (1620 UTC) .
It did not gain visual altitude and was seen making a sharp left turn, before it came down some 300 yards (274 meters) from the runway, near a highway, Jacobs said.
First responders swept the flight path to find anyone who might have tried to jump out of the plane as it began to nose dive but did not find any such signs, Jacobs added.
Investigation underway in Missouri crash
The cause of the crash was not immediately known.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) — which was leading a probe into the incident — said in a statement that investigators were set to reach the scene on Monday.
A final report on the cause of the crash is expected to be published in 12 to 24 months, news agencies cited the NTSB as saying.
“For all intents and purposes, (this) appears to be an accident,” Bates County Sheriff Chad Anderson Anderson said at a press conference.
Some of the passengers’ family members witnessed the crash, Anderson said.
Visuals from the crash site showed blue and silver metal from the wrecked plane heaped on the grass as a battery of emergency vehicles responded to the incident.
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Edited by: Wesley Dockery
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