At least 8 die in Minnesota small-jet crash

OWATONNA, Minn. (AP) — A small jet crashed Thursday while preparing to land at a regional airport in Minnesota, killing at least eight people, including casino and construction executives.

Sheriff Gary Ringhofer said there were at most nine people aboard the Raytheon Hawker 800, which went down at a regional airport about 60 miles south of the Twin Cities. He said investigators were looking into whether there was a passenger who is unaccounted for.

Seven people were dead at the scene. One died later at a hospital. The plane was carrying two pilots.

Severe weather had been moving through southern Minnesota earlier Thursday, but witnesses and the National Weather Service said the storms were subsiding at the time of the crash. It wasn’t immediately clear if weather was a factor.

The charter jet, flying from Atlantic City, N.J., to Owatonna, a town of 25,000, went down in a cornfield northwest of Degner Regional Airport, Ringhofer said. The wreckage was not visible to reporters because tall corn obscured the crash site.

The debris was scattered 500 feet beyond the airport’s runway. Late Thursday, the Dakota County coroner was on the scene working to identify victims.

Cameron Smith, a mechanic at the airport, said he spoke by radio with the jet’s pilot just minutes before the crash.

The pilot was about to land and was asking where he should park for fuel, Smith said.

He ran to the crash scene to see if anyone could be helped, but saw only a long skid path and debris that he described as “shredded.”