Plane Crash Kills Eight in South Minnesota

At least eight people have been killed in a plane crash near the southern Minnesota town of Owatonna, the Associated Press and local media reported Thursday morning. One person, who had been listed in critical condition as of 11:40 a.m. in the Owatonna hospital has died from injuries sustained in the accident, the Associated Press reported just before 3:00 p.m. that afternoon. At least one person is still missing, according to the Steele County Sheriff’s Office.

Kare11-TV and the Star Tribune report that charter flight 81, a Raytheon BAE 125-800A commercial jet, was trying to land at Owatonna Degner Regional Airport just after 9:30 a.m local time en route from Atlantic City, New Jersey.

The plane was owned by East Coast Jets Inc. of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Aviation Research Group told the Star Tribune that East Coast Jets operates 11 aircraft — Hawker and Leer jets — and employs 21 pilots.

“They have a good safety history,” ARG President Joe Moeggenberg told the Star Tribune, based on federal data. “There were no recent incidents.”

This model of aircraft “has a very good safety record; been around along time,” said Gary Robb, aviation expert and attorney with a Kansas City law firm that represents aviation crash victims.

Gary Robb, an aviation expert and attorney told the Star Tribune that the aircraft “has a very good safety record [and has] been around along time.”

Both WCCO-TV and the Star Tribune report that the time of the crash coincided with a line of storms moving through the area, though what effect, if any the storm had, is under investigation. Witnesses told the Star Tribune that the worst of the storm had gone at the time of the crash and only light wind and rain remained.

Owatonna resident John Billingsly, a retired pilot who worked at the airport for many years, told the Star Tribune, “I saw the plane making its final approach, and it appeared nothing was wrong. We’d just had a lot of wind, but it had calmed down a bit and mostly subsided by that time.”

The plane was a charter for Viracon, an architectural glass fabricator based in Owatonna. The plane’s passengers were Viracon customers from “a couple of different companies” arriving for a convention.

The crash is the deadliest in Minnesota since October 2002, when Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone and seven others died after their chartered twin-engine plane crashed in the woods near Eveleth, in Northern Minnesota, according to the Star Tribune.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), an independent agency responsible for investigation of accidents involving aviation, highway, marine, pipelines and railroads in the w:United States (except aircraft of the armed forces and the intelligence agencies), will be investigating the crash.

The NTSB reports two other fatal accidents since 1962 at Owatonna airport. A crash in 1992 killed one and injured another and a crash in 2004 killed four people.

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