There appear to be no survivors after a twin-engine plane crashed shortly after it took off Wednesday from an airport in Little Rock, Arkansas.
The Beechcraft BE200 went down after it departed from Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport at about noon, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a preliminary report. Five people were on the plane, which was headed to Columbus, Ohio.
Pulaski County Sheriff's Lt. Cody Burk told reporters that authorities were in "recovery mode," NBC affiliate KARK of Little Rock reported.
"Right now, there are no survivors that we can find," Burk said.
CTEH, a science-based consulting firm, confirmed that five employees, including the pilot, were on the plane. All five were killed.
The employees were not individually identified.
“We ask everyone to keep the families of those lost and the entire CTEH team in their thoughts and prayers," said Paul Nony, a senior vice president of CTEH.
The team was on its way to respond to an incident at the I. Schumann & Co. metal alloy manufacturer in Ohio, CTEH said. An industrial blast at the plant killed a person and injured more than a dozen other people Monday.
The cause of the blast was still under investigation.
Multiple agencies responded to the crash, which occurred on a road outside a 3M manufacturing plant. The National Transportation Safety Board is expected to lead the investigation, as is typical with plane crashes.
Burk said that the weather conditions were "not that good" but that he could not speculate on the cause of the crash. KARK meteorologist Pat Walker noted that a thunderstorm had moved into the area at the time of the crash, with wind gusts over 40 mph.