4 Die in Plane Crash: 2 Adults, 2 Children Dead in New Mexico
Two adults and two children died in a plane crash on Sunday near Northern New Mexico. The crash occurred in the New Mexico community of Angel Fire.
Details behind the crash are still unclear, but it's clear that the accident occurred during takeoff. Winds were high at the time, but the cause of the crash is still unknown.
A family of four was aboard the plane, according to reports. The plane, a Mooney M20E, was registered to Verhalen Flyers LLC in Scottsville, Texas, according to KSLA. Officials believe the family was from San Antonio, Texas; the names of the victims have not yet been released. It has not been confirmed that the four passengers were related, according to Carl Shilcutt with Angel Fire Airport.
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There were no survivors in the crash.
Michael Turri, a witness at the scene of the accident, said that little was left of the plane.
"When I came up on the scene there was really nothing left of the aircraft or to indicate that it was even an aircraft," he told KAOT.
Airport officials confirmed that an investigation into the cause of the crash and whether or not it was weather related would begin on Monday.
"At this point, it's really too early to speculate on what might have happened," Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) spokes woman, Lynn Lunsford, told The Taos News.
Carl Shilcutt, an airport official, told the ABQ Journal that the wind was blowing at around 55 miles per hour.
A second person who witnessed the crash also suggested that wind may have been a factor based on the plane's takeoff.
"It appeared the plane was trying to build altitude leaving the runway and caught the wind wrong and took a nosedive for the ground," John Nelly told the Taos News.
