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Plane crash in Montana claims 17 lives
Sun Mar. 22 2009 7:18:04 PM
The Associated Press
BUTTE, Mont. — Seventeen people, including several children, were killed when a small plane crashed Sunday in central Montana, a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said.
Spokesman Mike Fergus said the single engine turboprop plane departed from Orville, Calif., and that the pilot had filed a flight plan showing a final destination of Bozeman.
Fergus said the pilot cancelled his flight plan at some point and headed for Butte. The plane crashed about 150 metres from the airport while attempting to land and caught fire.
Fergus said preliminary reports indicate the dead included numerous children. He said there were no known fatalities on the ground.
"We think that it was probably a ski trip for the kids," Fergus said.
Fergus said the plane was registered to Eagle Cap Leasing Inc. in Enterprise, Ore., but he didn't know who was operating the plane.
Calls to local authorities were not immediately returned.
Fergus said the Pilatus PC-12 aircraft was manufactured in 2001. He said the National Transportation Safety Board has an investigator located in Butte who was thought to be on scene. The FAA's flight standards investigator was en route.
The plane crashed in Butte's Holy Cross Cemetery at about 2:30 p.m. MDT, The Montana Standard reported in a story posted on its Web site.
Kenny Gulick, 14, who lives near the airport, told the newspaper that the plane was clearly in trouble.
"All of a sudden the pilot lost control and went into a nosedive," Gulick told the newspaper. "He couldn't pull out in time and crashed into the trees of the cemetery."
Martha and Steve Guidoni were near the cemetery at the time of the crash.
"We had just came out of the gas station, across from the cemetery, and watched it crashed. It just nose-dived into the ground," Martha Guidoni told the newspaper. "My husband went over there to see if he could do anything."
http://cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CT...2/?hub=CP24Home
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