A skydiving expedition ended in a deadly plane crash near Kansas City on Sunday. Twelve people were killed – the pilot and 11 people aboard.
Bates County Sheriff Chad Anderson told reporters on the scene that the plane went down around 11:30 a.m. – shortly after takeoff at the airport in Butler.
“It absolutely is a call that nobody wants to have on any day,” he said. “We just want to reassure the public that there’s nothing criminal that we can see, nothing terrorism-related, or anything like that. Those are some of the first questions we would have with the World Cup being in town. And for all intents and purposes appears to be an accident.”
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are investigating.
“We are treating that as a mass casualty,” Anderson said. “We want to be very clear – this is not a commercial airliner that has crashed. It’s a local airplane.”
The flight was operated by Skydive Kansas City, which said its focus is to assist investigators and to support the staff and skydiving community.
According to Anderson, every fire department within 15 miles responded to the crash.
“We don’t know what we are getting into. We don’t know the type or the style of the plane initially. We get on scene – there is a fire, so the fire department goes to work. Law enforcement starts showing up. We have multiple ambulances coming in,” he said.
He said the airport and nearby roads could be closed until possibly Tuesday.
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