US: Officials check on plane overloading in US crash
24 Mar 2009 4:17
BUTTE, Montana, March 23 AP - Investigators in the United States say they'll look into whether a single-engine turboprop plane was overloaded when it nose-dived into a cemetery and killed all 14 people on board, half of them children.
The plane was likely designed to carry a total of 11 people, including two pilots, Mark Rosenker, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said at a news conference on Monday.
The plane crashed and burned at a cemetery 150 metres short of an airport in Butte, in the US state of Montana, on Sunday, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Mike Fergus said earlier.
The plane, a Pilatus PC-12, was believed to be taking its occupants on a ski trip to Montana.
Seven of those on board were children.
"It will take us a while to understand," Rosenker said.
"We have to get the weights of all the passengers, we have to get the weight of the fuel, all of the luggage."
Making the case more complicated, federal aviation officials said the plane didn't have a cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder and wasn't certified to carry commercial passengers.
The plane left Oroville, California, headed for Bozeman, Montana, but changed course to Butte, where it crashed on final approach on Sunday.
The pilot gave no indication to air traffic controllers that the aircraft was experiencing difficulty when the pilot asked to divert to an airport in Butte, Rosenker said in an email earlier in the day.
The plane crashed just short of the Bert Mooney Airport in Butte. Like thousands of small US airports, the Butte airport doesn't have radar control.
