No fewer than nine people have reportedly lost their lives on Saturday, November 30th as a result of plane crash in rough weather near Chamberlain, South Dakota.
In a statement released by the Federal Aviation Administration, it stated that a Pilatus PC-12, a single-engine turboprop passenger plane, had as many as 12 people on board when it crashed shortly after takeoff about a mile from Chamberlain Municipal Airport.
Brule County state’s attorney Theresa Maule Rossow said survivors were hospitalized in Sioux Falls. Among the dead was the plane’s pilot, she said.
First responders at the scene “should be commended in their heroic actions to rescue the victims in extreme weather conditions,” Rossow said in a statement. The plane was en route to Idaho Falls Regional Airport in Idaho when it went down, the FAA said.
The area of the crash was under a winter storm warning with a few inches of snow accumulating, according to the National Weather Service. “FAA investigators are on their way to the accident site, and the National Transportation Safety Board has been notified,” the FAA said.
