Five people were killed when a small plane crashed in Little Rock (Picture: AP)
Five people were killed when a plane carrying environmental consultants to the site of a deadly explosion in Ohio crashed shortly after taking off.
The small twin-engine Beech BE20 aircraft slammed into the ground shortly after taking off from Bill and Hillary Clinton International Airport in Little Rock, Arkansas on Wednesday.
The plane was transporting consultants from the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health (CTEH) to the site of an explosion at the I Schumann & Co metals factory outside of Cleveland.
On Monday afternoon, a fiery explosion erupted from the Ohio foundry, killing one person and injuring at least a dozen more employees.
The small craft crashed after taking off from Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport (Picture: Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Onlookers in the surrounding area could see plumes of smoke after molten debris scattered and started fires for several hundred yards around the blast site.
The Little Rock Fire Department responded to the downed plane around 12.02pm on Monday. The wreckage was found near a 3M factory only about 2 miles from the airport. They currently believe there were no survivors from the flight.
All five of the plane’s occupants, including the pilot, were employees of the company, a CTEH official told Metro.co.uk. The company also owned the plane.
The victims were identified by the company as Micah Kendrick, Kyle Bennett, Gunter Beaty, Glenmarkus Walker, and Sean Sweeney, who was piloting the aircraft.
The plane flew only about 2 miles before crashing into a field south of the airport (Picture: AP)
‘We are incredibly saddened to report the loss of our Little Rock colleagues,’ said CTEH senior vice president Dr Paul Nony. ‘We ask everyone to keep the families of those lost and the entire CTEH team in their thoughts and prayers.’
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is currently investigating the cause of the crash.
Harsh weather swept through the region on Wednesday around the time of the plane’s crash, including thunderstorms and wind gusts of up to 40 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service.
It is unclear if the weather played a role in the crash, but the storms did delay the start to the investigation.
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The small twin-engine Beech BE20 aircraft slammed into the ground shortly after taking off from Bill and Hillary Clinton International Airport.
