Plane that departed Fort Dodge Regional Airport crashes
Indiana officials say there were ‘no survivors’
ANDERSON, Ind. — A privately-owned plane that left the Fort Dodge Regional Airport early Friday morning crashed in Anderson, Indiana, killing all four passengers, says the Federal Aviation Administration.
The single-engine Piper PA-46 departed Fort Dodge at 6:48 a.m. and crashed near Anderson Municipal Airport-Darlington Field, northeast of Indianapolis, at 9:52 a.m. Eastern time.
“We can confirm that the aircraft involved in this incident was not based at our airport,” said Rhonda Chambers, director of aviation at the Fort Dodge Regional Airport.
The airplane is owned by a company, the name of which has not been released, though the Fort Dodge Regional Airport said the airplane was not housed in Fort Dodge.
According to the Madison County Sheriff’s Department (Indiana), emergency crews responded to a corn field near the airport at approximately 10 a.m. Eastern time, where they found the plane on fire.
Capt. Darwin Dwiggins with the Madison County Sheriff’s Department (Indiana) said that as the plane was making its initial approach to the airport when the pilot was told they were too high and were told to reroute and make another approach. Dwiggins said witnesses told police the plane was possibly attempting to turn back towards the airport when it “flipped over” and nose-dived into a cornfield where it then caught on fire.
The Sheriff’s Department confirmed there were “no survivors.” The flight plan listed four people onboard the plane.
According to Dwiggins, it would be a “long process moving forward to clean up the wreckage and investigate the wreckage.”
As of press time, the names of the victims as well as the name of the company owning the plane had not yet been made public.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.