Federal investigators arrived Monday in Butler, Mo., hoping to learn what caused a skydiving plane to crash shortly after takeoff on Sunday, killing all 12 people aboard.
The crash, which killed 11 passengers and the pilot and occurred near midday about 60 miles south of Kansas City, Mo., was the deadliest involving a skydiving plane in 31 years, according to the United States Parachute Association. In 1995, a skydiving plane crashed in West Point, Va., also killing 12 people.
Here’s what we know about the crash:
The crash occurred on a day with clear skies.
Sunday was a seemingly perfect day to be in the air. It was sunny after thunderstorms, heavy wind and rain had passed through the night before.
Dennis Jacobs, the emergency management director in Butler, said the pilot had been trying to gain altitude in the Pacific Aerospace P750 plane, a model designed largely for skydiving.
When that was unsuccessful, the plane veered left, most likely in an attempt to land on a flat roadway, Mr. Jacobs said. Instead, the plane stalled and crashed in a field inside the perimeter of Butler Memorial Airport.
The skydiving company has a lengthy history in Missouri.
Skydive Kansas City, which operated the flight, was founded in 1998 and is a fixture in the area’s skydiving community. It was the only skydiving business that used that airport, Mr. Jacobs said.
In January 2024, a private investment firm, Little Engine Ventures, announced that it was acquiring the company. The parent company also owns skydiving businesses in Indianapolis and Beloit, Wis.
On its website, Skydive Kansas City noted its “impeccable safety record.” But two years ago, an incident left at least one skydiver hurt and the plane destroyed.
The company lost a plane in May 2024 when the emergency parachute handle of a skydiver was “scraped” as he moved toward the door. According to a National Transportation Safety Board report, the parachute opened outside the airplane and then dragged the skydiver into the plane’s horizontal stabilizer, which is part of the tail of the aircraft. He was left with serious injuries, while the other five passengers and the pilot were able to jump out of the plane.
The crash recalled another in the Kansas City area.
Sunday’s crash rekindled memories of another deadly skydiving accident in the area — a 1998 crash of a plane that killed the pilot and five skydivers. An N.T.S.B. investigation blamed preflight inspection failures by the pilot for the accident, according to the report.
The engine manufacturer, Teledyne Continental Motors, agreed to pay $27.5 million to settle claims by the victims’ families.
How dangerous is skydiving?
Despite the inherent dangers of jumping out of an airplane thousands of feet above ground, skydiving has become safer in recent decades.
Fatal crashes have declined significantly over the years, according to data from the U.S. Parachute Association. The annual average number of fatalities dropped to 12.7 in the 2020s from 42.5 in the 1970s. Last year, there were about 3.5 million jumps from airplanes in the United States.
Crashes have also become less frequent. Since a skydiving flight crashed in Hawaii in 2019, killing 11 people, there had been nine fatalities in six crashes over a nearly seven-year span — until Sunday’s crash.
Reporting was contributed by Christina Morales, Danny Hakim, Maia Spoto, Bernard Mokam and Ali Watkins.
