All aboard killed in US plane crash

A private plane crashed in Butler, Missouri, killing 11 skydivers and a pilot, the plane operator Skydive Kansas City said on Sunday (June 14).

The Missouri State Highway Patrol said the crash occurred near Butler Memorial Airport, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Kansas City. The skydiving company said in a statement that “sadly, all 12 people on board were killed in this accident.” The company said the names of the victims would not be released until their families were officially notified.

Dennis Jacobs, acting manager of Butler Memorial Airport and Bates County emergency management director, told Reuters that the single-engine turboprop plane took off at about 11:20 a.m. local time. It failed to reach sufficient altitude. It then made a sharp left turn and crashed about 300 yards short of the runway.

The NTSB identified the plane as a Pacific Aerospace 750XL.

“This was not a commercial passenger plane, it was a local plane,” Bates County Sheriff Chad Anderson said at a news conference. “It appears to be an accident,” he said.

According to the U.S. Parachute Association, a nonprofit organization, there were 16 skydiving-related fatalities out of an estimated 3.5 million skydiving jumps in the country last year. Excluding the Missouri crash, there have been 25 deaths in eight fatal skydiving-related crashes in the United States in the past decade.