Photo: Bloomberg
Five people were killed after a twin-engine plane crashed shortly after taking off from Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock, Arkansas, on Wednesday (February 22) afternoon.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane was a Beech 200 Super King Air that was heading to John Glenn Columbus International Airport in Ohio with five people on board.
A witness told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that he heard a loud explosion followed by several smaller ones and could see flames rising from the crash site.
"It was just red, then it starts turning black, and there's this burnt smell," Denis Gordon told the paper.
Officials have not identified the victims and said that they did not find any survivors at the crash site.
Investigators have not determined what caused the plane to crash.
KARK meteorologist Pat Walker suggested that the crash was likely related to the weather, as a severe thunderstorm produced wind gusts of 46 mph at the time the plane went down.
"LIT experienced a wind gust from a thunderstorm of 46 mph at 12:02 p.m. This crash was likely weather-related. #ARNews #ARWX #ARStormTeam," Walker wrote on Twitter.