CHESTERFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Two people died when a small plane crashed in St. Charles County shortly after taking off Saturday evening.
National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson said the twin-engine Beechcraft Baron 58 took off from an airport in Chesterfield and climbed to roughly 8,000 feet before it started to descend sharply and crashed around 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Mary Case, the chief medical examiner for St. Charles County, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that it could take several days to identify the people who died in the crash.
Several people called to report hearing the crash shortly after the airport reported the pilot made a distress call.
But it took first responders a couple hours to locate the site of the crash in a heavily wooded, rural area near Highway F and Rugged Acres Lane,
A spokesman for the St. Charles County Ambulance District, Kyle Gaines, said officials determined that no one could have survived the crash.
The NTSB is investigating the cause of the crash.