A Pilatus PC-12 carrying children and adults from California, apparently to a skiing vacation in Montana, diverted from its planned destination and crashed on Sunday, March 22, as it attempted to land at an airport near Butte. A Federal Aviation Administration official said that 14 to 17 people – he said the number was still uncertain – had been killed. A Monday morning CNN report stated that 14 were aboard, including one family of five.
A mechanic at a California airport where the plane stopped in the morning told The New York Times that about a dozen children were on board.
Witnesses at the scene of the crash said the aircraft was turning steeply as it approached Bert Mooney Airport on the outskirts of Butte when it dove abruptly, plunged into a wooded area in Holy Cross Cemetery, and burst into flames.
According to flightaware.com, an airplane tracking service, the flight originated at Redlands, Calif., then flew to Vacaville. It stayed at Vacaville for 50 minutes before making a short hop to Oroville, where it was on the ground for about 30 minutes. Both stops were in California.
It was unclear when and where the children boarded the flight. Tom Hagler, a mechanic at the Oroville airport, told New York Times reporters he let about a dozen children from the plane use the airport bathroom. They were about 6 to 10 years old, he is quoted as saying; “a lot of really cute kids.” He spoke briefly with the pilot, he said, but did not recognize him or any of the children and did not know if any members of the group were local.
Mike Fergus, an FAA spokesman, told The Associated Press that the single-engine turboprop had taken off from Oroville at about 11 a.m. Pacific time on what was to be a 700-mile flight to Gallatin Field near Bozeman, Mont. The Bozeman airfield is 10 miles south of the Bridger Bowl Ski Area in the Gallatin Mountains, the apparent destination of the vacationers. “We think it was probably a ski trip for the kids,” Fergus said. At some point, the pilot canceled the flight plan and headed for Butte, 75 miles west of Bozeman, Fergus said. The plane crashed about 500 feet west of Bert Mooney Airport, there, at 3:26 p.m. Mountain time, he said. It was not clear why the pilot headed for Butte, but it suggests that he needed to land promptly. The National Transportation Safety Board has sent an investigator.
The Pilatus PC-12 is registered to Eagle Cap Leasing of Enterprise, Ore., and apparently was rented from that company. PC-12 specifications list seating configurations for 9 or 10 people. The one that crashed was said to have seating for 12, but Les Dorr, another FAA spokesman, said that 14 to 17 people were aboard.
NTSB records list 15 PC-12 accidents since 2001, six of them fatal. An NTSB database shows that the crash aircraft had not been involved in any previous accidents.
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