Guidoni/Montana Standard/Getty
A small, singe-engine plane burst into flames in Holy Cross Cemetery just south of Butte, Montana. All 14 people on board were killed, many of them children, federal aviation officials said.
Fourteen people, including seven children, heading for a ski trip died Sunday when their single-engine plane crashed into a Montana graveyard and burst into a fireball, federal officials said.
The aircraft, a 2001 Pilatus PC-12 with the seating capacity of only eight, nosedived into the Holy Cross Cemetery in Butte, 500 feet short of the airport, officials said.
"All of a sudden the pilot lost control and went into a nosedive," witness Kenny Gulick, 14, told The Montana Standard newspaper. "He couldn't pull out in time and crashed into the trees of the cemetery."
Citing preliminary information, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said everyone killed in the 2:30 p.m. crash was aboard the plane. There were no reports of injuries on the ground.
The turboprop plane had taken off from the small northern California town of Oroville about 11 a.m. and was taking passengers on a Montana ski vacation, said FAA spokesman Mike Fergus.
"We think that it was probably a ski trip for the kids," Fergus said.
According to a flight plan, the plane was headed to Bozeman, Mont., about 85 miles from Butte.
During the course of the 900-mile trip, the pilot canceled his flight plan and headed for Butte, Fergus said.
It was not immediately clear if the problems with the aircraft caused the pilot to divert from his original route.
Witness Steve Guidoni said he and his wife rushed to the crash site after seeing the plane plummet from the sky and explode into a fireball that sent flames shooting above the trees of the cemetery.
"I looked to see if there was anybody I could pull out, but there wasn't anything there. I couldn't see anything," he said. "There was some luggage strewn around ... there was some plane parts."
The plane originated from Redlands, near Los Angeles, and made a stop in Vacaville in the Bay Area, before heading to Oroville, according to the flight-tracking site FBOweb.com.
Tom Hagler, a mechanic at the Oroville airport, told The Sacramento Bee that he allowed several children ages 6 to 10 to use the airport bathroom before they boarded the doomed plane.
"There were a lot of kids in the group," he said, "a lot of really cute kids."
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