A single-engine airplane crashed near Butte, Montana, on Sunday, killing at least 17 people, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said.
The Pilatus PC-12 left Orville, California, at 11 a.m. PT for Bozeman, Montana, but rerouted to Butte instead, FAA spokesman Mike Fergus said. The plane crashed 500 feet short of the runway at Bert Mooney Airport. The plane, manufactured in 2001, was registered to Eagle Cap Leasing in Enterprise, Oregon, according to the FAA. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were at the scene. According to The Montana Standard newspaper, a fireman said the plane may have been carrying several children on their way to a ski vacation. Martha Guidoni told CNN she and her husband were driving near the airport when they “watched this plane just take a nosedive” at a cemetery. “We drove [there] to see if there was any way my husband could help someone, and we were too late,” Guidoni said. “There was nothing to help.”
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Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board were at the crash site Sunday afternoon, Fergus said.
