Updated - 7 Children Among 14 Killed In Montana Crash – With Video

Mar 23, 2009 Comments Off Pat Dollard

UPDATE:

FOX:

BUTTE, Mont. — A single engine turboprop airplane that nose-dived into a Montana cemetery jerked sharply to the left before crashing, a witness said Monday. All 14 people on board, half of them young children, were killed.

Kenny Gulick, 14, told CBS television that he thought he was watching a stunt plane because the pilot was making so many turns before the plane crashed Sunday night.

“He jerked the plane to the left too quickly and lost control of it, but that’s just my guess,” said Gulick. “And all of a sudden it went into a nosedive. I noticed the pilot trying to pull up but he was extremely low to the ground and he didn’t pull up in time.”

Valley Register, reported on its Web site late Sunday that a prominent doctor, his wife and three young children were among the victims.

Napa Valley opthamologist Dr. Erin Jacobson of St. Helena, his wife Amy and three children, Taylor, 4, Ava, 3, and Jude, 2, were on their way to see family in Bozeman, about 85 miles southeast of Butte, the Register reported.

“They were extraordinary, wonderful, giving and kind,” Jacobson family friend Elizabeth Naylor told the Register. “Our daughters grew up together. My daughter asked [Sunday] if we could have their daughter over for a play date this week, and we told them we could after they got back.”

The aircraft had departed from Oroville, California, and the pilot had filed a flight plan showing a destination of Bozeman. But the pilot canceled his flight plan at some point and headed for Butte, FAA spokesman Mike Fergus said.

The death toll was confirmed by Karen Byrd, a Federal Aviation Administration operations officer in Renton, Washington. Earlier, the count had been put as high as 17. Byrd said seven adults and seven children died in the crash.

The single engine turboprop crashed and burned at Holy Cross Cemetery, 500 feet short of Bert Mooney Airport in Butte, said Fergus.

The plane, a Pilatus PC-12, was believed to be taking its occupants on a ski trip to Montana. “We think that it was probably a ski trip for the kids,” Fergus said.

The Pilatus PC-12′s capacity is 12 adults. It was not known whether the extra people aboard was a factor in the crash, since seven of the victims were children.

Aviation expert Peter Goelz said it would be a “difficult” investigation.

“This plane does not carry a flight data recorder, so investigators are not going to have those very valuable tools to find out what was going on in the cockpit, what was going on in the plane,” Goelz told FOX News.

“What’s most important right now is the wreckage. Is it all there? How was the plane configured? This will be an old-fashioned investigation.”

An investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, Kristi Dunks, offered few details at a press conference in Butte Sunday night. No cause of the crash was given.

Dunks would not say if there had been a distress call from the pilot. It was partly cloudy, the visibility was 10 miles and winds were blowing from the northwest around 10 mph at the time of the crash, according to hourly temperature information from the National Weather Service.

Butte Silver-Bow Sheriff John Walsh said there were a few people at the cemetery at the time of the crash, but no one on the ground was injured.

The plane was registered to Eagle Cap Leasing Inc. in Enterprise, Oregon, Fergus said. He didn’t know who was operating the plane.

I. Felkamp is listed in Oregon corporate records as Eagle Cap’s president. Attempts to reach him by phone were unsuccessful.

In Switzerland, Markus Kaelin, executive assistant to the chairman of Pilatus Aircraft, said the company had no comment.

FOX:

FAA: Plane Crash in Butte, Montana Kills 17

A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman says 17 people have died in a plane crash in Butte, Mont.

FAA Spokesman Mike Fergus says preliminary reports indicate the dead include numerous children.

“We think that it was probably a ski trip for the kids,” Fergus said.

The plane was traveling from Oroville, Calif. before it crashed into Holy Cross cemetery, officials told The Montana Standard.

Fergus says the plane departed from Orville, Calif. and that the pilot had filed a flight plan showing a final destination of Bozeman. The pilot had canceled his flight plan at some point and headed for Butte.

The plane crashed about 500 feet from the airport while attempting to land and caught fire.

There are no known fatalities on the ground.

Pat Ryan, a reporter with the Montana Standard, told FOX News that the area is now cordoned off. Witnesses told Ryan that they saw the plane approaching from the west, fly in sideways and crash straight down into the Holy Cross cemetery.

An eyewitness to the crash told The Montana Standard the plane was doing steep angle turns and then went into a nose dive.

“All of a sudden the pilot lost control and went into a nose dive,” said Kenny Gulick. “He couldn’t pull out in time and crashed into the trees of the cemetery.”

Fergus said the plane, a 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.

There will be a press conference at the airport.