12 Die in Crash of Skydiving Plane

A plane carrying a pilot and 11 passengers planning to spend a sunny afternoon skydiving crashed Sunday in Missouri, killing all aboard, authorities said. The crash occurred in a field next to the Butler Memorial Airport, roughly 65 miles south of Kansas City, officials said. Missouri Highway Patrol Sgt. Justin Ewing said the plane was taking people up to skydive. A heap of blue and silver mangled metal lay in the grass with a massive lineup of emergency vehicles on the street beside it, the AP reports.

The private plane was operated by Skydive Kansas City, said Dennis Jacobs, the acting airport manager and Bates County Emergency Management Agency director. "It had just taken off and made a left turn" before the crash, Jacobs said. "In my opinion I think it was losing power, and he was trying to make it over to the highway and land, and he stalled and went down nose first and caught fire." Emergency responders were able to put out the fire shortly after the crash, Jacobs said, calling the scene "brutal." Teams from the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration were en route to the crash site Sunday afternoon to investigate, according to the Missouri State Patrol.