Date: June 14th, 2026 5:09 PM
Author: need tokens
...as if that's a good idea in the first place.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/14/us/skydiving-plane-crash-butler-missouri.html
Twelve Dead in Skydiving Plane Crash
Eleven passengers and a pilot were killed shortly after takeoff near the Butler Memorial Airport in Missouri
By Christina Morales | June 14, 2026 | Updated 3:59 p.m. ET
Eleven passengers and a pilot who were taking off for a skydiving trip in Missouri were killed in a plane crash shortly after takeoff on Sunday near the Butler Memorial Airport, several local authorities said.
Emergency responders received a call about the plane crash just after 11:30 a.m. local time. All of the occupants were found dead near a field adjacent to the airport, said Sgt. Justin Ewing of the Missouri Highway Patrol.
Investigators do not know what caused the crash but authorities said that it was unlikely to have been related to the weather, which was described as a sunny day by Dennis Jacobs, the emergency management director in Butler. A thunderstorm, windy weather and two inches of rain came down on the city on Saturday night.
“It’s such a beautiful day that such a tragic thing happened,” he said. “It’s mind numbing.”
The Butler Memorial Airport is operated by the town and has the capacity to land small jets, said Jim Henry, the mayor of Butler, a city of about 4,000 people about 70 miles south of Kansas City.
“This is just a tragic event to have happened,” Mr. Henry said.
In a statement, the F.A.A. said on Sunday that a Pacific Aerospace P750 crashed while departing from the airport around 11:35 a.m. local time. Air traffic services were not being provided at the time.
Mr. Jacobs said the company operating the aircraft was Skydive Kansas City. He added that the plane was only about 100 feet in the air when it crashed soon after takeoff, so soon that the occupants would not have been able to use their parachutes.
It seemed, he said, that the pilot was trying to gain altitude and when they were unable to, appeared to turn the plane left, likely in an attempt to land on a flat roadway nearby. Instead, the plane stalled and crashed into the ground inside the airport’s perimeter, he said.
“There has never been a crash like this,” he said of the Butler airport.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5874239&forum_id=2Reputation#49938304)