NTSB looks into fatal plane crash

ST. LOUIS -- An air safety investigator said Friday that a single-engine plane separated into pieces before it hit the ground Thursday in eastern Missouri.

All three on board were killed.

National Transportation Safety Board air investigator Ed Malinowski said wreckage was found both east and west of a highway near the plane crash.

The Piper 46, which was built last year, was carrying three people who had attended an ethanol conference in St. Louis and was en route to Buffalo, Minn.

The plane took off from Spirit of St. Louis Airport in suburban St. Louis and went down in a farm field near the northwestern corner of Montgomery County in eastern Missouri.

"The plane had come to rest in several pieces," Malinowski said. "It looks like the aircraft separated before it hit the terrain."

Malinowski said it was too soon to tell whether the plane hit something before the crash or whether mechanical problems were involved. He expected to be at the scene into Saturday as the investigation continued.

Malinowski said the plane was in radio contact with a Kansas City flight tower before the crash, but he didn't know the details yet. He also didn't know whether rain in the area at the time of the crash was a contributing factor.

Those killed were David McCormick, Michael Kammerer and Waylon Karsten, the Missouri State Highway Patrol has said. Their hometowns were not available yet.

The three had attended the Fuel Ethanol Workshop and Expo in St. Louis and were on their way home.

Elizabeth Isham Cory, spokeswoman for the FAA's office in Chicago, said the plane's tail number is N477MD, registered to an aviation-services company, McC Aviation Services of Rockford, Minn.

McCormick was president of McC Inc., also doing business as McCormick Construction Co. Inc., in Greenfield, Minn., where Kammerer also worked.

Karsten listed his business affiliation as ECSI.

The company's Web site describes McC Inc. as an agricultural-industrial construction company founded in 1992 with expertise in grain handling used in the ethanol industry. McCormick was the founder.

Cory said the plane took off from Spirit airport around 8 a.m. Thursday; the FAA lost contact with it at 8:15 a.m.

Missouri State Highway Patrol Troop F in Jefferson City said local law enforcement received phone calls from citizens reporting a plane with engine trouble.