KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the role a skydiver’s parachute might have had on the crash of a plane on a skydiving mission Saturday near Butler, Missouri.
A Cessna U206 aircraft with tail number N29173 departed around 12:25 p.m. Saturday from Butler Municipal Airport with six skydivers and a pilot.
The FAA says just before 1 p.m., a parachute from one of the jumpers deployed over the tail, damaging the horizontal stabilizer.
The damage caused the plane to lose control, but before it could crash, the pilot was able to jump from the aircraft and deploy their parachute. All of the skydivers had previously exited the plane.
No injuries were reported to the six jumpers and the pilot, but the plane crashed into a twisted pile of metal in a hay field near the airport.
FAA records indicate the Cessna was manufactured in 1968, receiving its most recent certificate in 2008.
The National Transportation Safety Board told KSHB 41 News Sunday that the wreckage of the plane was being transferred to an off-site facility for additional investigation.
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