A pilot and 11 passengers preparing to skydive were killed when a plane crashed moments after takeoff from Missouri.
According to CNN, the Federal Aviation Administration said that the plane had just taken off from Butler Memorial Airport in western Missouri around 11:35 am on Sunday, June 14, when it crashed.
“It never reached an altitude of 100-200 feet. It was barely over the trees,” said Dennis Jacobs, Bates County emergency management director and the acting manager for Butler Memorial Airport, located some 60 miles south of Kansas City.
The plane made a sharp left turn and plummeted about 300 yards from the runway as some victims’ family members who were also there to cheer on their loved ones looked on, Jacobs said.
A witness to the deadly plane crash said "the plane just completely like shattered with the ground" upon impact.
Bailey Reed, who saw the crash happen told CBS News, “It was completely perpendicular with the wings to the sky, to the ground, going fast. And then they just hit the ground. The ground and trees around it exploded and it just lit up in flames."
Reed said the people on board the plane would not have had a chance to deploy parachutes.
"They didn't have time to jump. They were so low to the ground the parachutes wouldn't have deployed and there was no way anyone could have jumped and survived that," she recalled.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash and it could take one to two years to release its final report.
