US Plane Crashes, killing 5 on Board

On Wednesday, five people were killed after a plane crashed in Little Rock, the United States, shortly after taking off from a nearby airport.

A twin-engine Beechcraft King Air 200 plane departed Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport and crashed about a mile away, near a 3M industrial plant that makes roofing granules. 

Emergency responders were alerted of the crash at 12:02 p.m., according to the City of Little Rock Fire Department.

All five victims, including the pilot, were employees of CTEH, a North Little Rock-based environmental consulting firm. They were flying aboard an aircraft owned by the company. 

A CTEH official mentioned that the employees had been on their way to respond to a deadly explosion that took place at a metals plant in Ohio earlier this week.

“Right now, there are no survivors that we can find,” Lt. Cody Burk, a spokesperson for Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office, told reporters. 

He added that the weather was “not that good” at the time of the flight, but that investigators must still determine the cause of the crash.

The fire department, Little Rock Police Department, and Pulaski County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to immediately investigate the incident. The National Transportation Safety Board is also investigating the matter.

The National Weather Service in Little Rock warned of rain and thunderstorms in the area around the time of the flight.

The King Air 200 is a twin-turboprop airliner typically used for business flights. It has also been used in pilot training and data collection missions conducted by NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center.

A similar model crashed in the UK in October 2015, killing the pilot and the only passenger. Later that year, 10 people died on board a King Air 200 chartered by the Indian Border Security Force after it crashed in Delhi.