Seven people were killed and one was seriously injured after a private jet crashed while taking off from Bangor International Airport in the US state of Maine.
The Bombardier Challenger 600 went down at around 19:45 local time (00:45 GMT on Monday), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said. The lone survivor of the crash was a member of the flight crew.
The incident came as a dangerous winter storm barrelled across a large swathe of the US, killing several people and leaving hundreds of thousands without power. Pilots had reportedly been struggling with visibility at the airport before the crash.
Bangor remains under a winter storm warning until Tuesday, with heavy snowfall forecast.
In a short report issued on Monday, the FAA said that the jet carrying eight people “crashed under unknown circumstances on departure” on Sunday evening.
The statement added that the aircraft “came to rest inverted and caught fire”.
Bangor International Airport said following the incident that it had closed and that emergency crews were responding. The incident remains under investigation, and officials have not released the identities of the victims.
Public records show that the plane is registered to a law firm in Houston, Texas.
Audio from air traffic control, reported by the BBC’s US partner CBS News and published by LiveATC.net, captured discussions between controllers and pilots minutes before the crash concerning poor visibility, though it was unclear which aircraft were heard in the communications.
Shortly afterwards, a controller was heard saying there was “a passenger aircraft upside down”. Images from the scene showed smoke and flames on the runway.
The disruption came amid widespread travel chaos due to the storm, with more than 11,000 flights cancelled and nearly 5,500 delayed across the US on Sunday, according to tracker FlightAware.
Airports in Philadelphia, Washington DC, Baltimore, North Carolina, New York and New Jersey were among those affected.
Between 10 and 16 inches (25-40cm) of snow is forecast to accumulate in parts of Maine, including Bangor, by Tuesday morning, according to the National Weather Service.
By BBC News
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