A tragic incident occurred on Saturday morning when a Mooney M20TN single-engine plane crashed in Tennessee, resulting in the deaths of all three individuals on board. The aircraft was descending towards the Upper Cumberland Regional Airport in White County after departing from Alabama when it went down.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the crash site was located south of the airport in Sparta. Dean Selby, the airport director, reported that the airport received notifications of the aircraft's distress around 11:50 a.m. Shortly thereafter, the Memphis Air Traffic Control Center informed the airport that they had lost all communication with the plane.
Emergency responders, including fire and rescue teams, along with volunteers, conducted a search for the wreckage. They were able to locate the crash site after the airport dispatched an aircraft to assist in the aerial search, as described by Selby.
The area where the plane was discovered was characterized as "remote." The Federal Aviation Administration has initiated an investigation and arrived at the scene a few hours post-crash. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is taking the lead on the investigation, is expected to arrive on Sunday.
Selby mentioned that the identities of the victims will not be disclosed until their families have been informed. Sparta is situated approximately 96 miles southeast of Nashville.
In recent weeks, there have been several small plane crashes, each resulting in fatalities. Last month, a plane crashed into a residence in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, followed by another incident in upstate New York two weeks later. Additionally, three individuals lost their lives when a plane went down in a river in Nebraska last Saturday, and four more perished in a single-engine aircraft crash in Illinois the following day.