Eleven skydivers and one pilot have been killed in a tragic plane crash in the US state of Missouri, government officials have confirmed.
A spokesman for Bates County Emergency Management said the plane took off at around 11:20 a.m. local time on Sunday. It was chartered by a skydiving company.
The spokesman told the BBC that the plane failed to climb to the required altitude after takeoff. It then suddenly turned left and crashed just 200 yards from Butler Memorial Airport. All 12 people on board died.
“We are treating this as a major casualty incident,” Bates County Sheriff Chad Anderson said at a press conference Sunday afternoon.
The sheriff said the crashed plane was not owned by a commercial airline. “It was a local plane. It took off from our local airport,” he said.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the plane, a Pacific Aerospace P750 model, crashed shortly after takeoff from the airport.
The FAA said there was no air traffic service for the plane at the time. A spokesperson explained that the type of airspace the plane was flying in did not require regular contact with regulators.
Local media reported that rescue workers searched the entire area to see if any skydivers had jumped from the plane before the crash.
The sheriff said several relatives of the victims witnessed the tragic accident with their own eyes. Authorities have not yet released the names of the victims.
The city of Butler, Missouri, is about 50 miles south of Kansas City. The FAA said the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has taken over the investigation into the crash.
