Twelve dead in Missouri skydiving plane crash

A pilot and 11 passengers died in a small plane crash just after takeoff on Sunday afternoon, according to local officials. The skydiving aircraft, a Pacific Aerospace P-750, crashed shortly after departing Butler Memorial Airport in western Missouri around 11:30 a.m. local time, according to a Sunday statement from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Bates County Sheriff Chad Anderson characterized the crash as a mass casualty event involving a local plane, not a commercial airliner. The plane took off for a skydiving operation and crashed right after, Anderson told reporters during a Sunday briefing. The sheriff said the victims’ families were among the witnesses of the crash.

Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe released a Sunday statement mourning those killed in the crash. Kehoe deployed state troopers and Missouri’s emergency management team to assist local officials at the scene of the mass fatality incident, he said.

What caused the crash? The crash details remain under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, Anderson told reporters on Sunday. Local authorities will recover victims' bodies for identification and return them to their families after federal investigators finish investigating the scene in a few days, Anderson said.

WORLD reached out to the NTSB for more details on the crash. This story will be updated with any response received.