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Crash Of Small Plane Kills At Least 8

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The Associated Press

Published: August 1, 2008

OWATONNA, Minn. - A small jet crashed Thursday while preparing to land at a regional airport in Minnesota, killing at least eight people, including casino and construction executives.

Sheriff Gary Ringhofer said there were at most nine people aboard the Raytheon Hawker 800, which went down at a regional airport about 60 miles south of the Twin Cities. He said investigators are looking into whether there was a passenger who is unaccounted for.

Seven people were dead at the scene. One died later at a hospital. Two pilots were aboard.
Severe weather had been moving through southern Minnesota earlier Thursday, but witnesses and the National Weather Service said the storms were subsiding at the time of the crash. It wasn't immediately clear if weather was a factor.

The charter jet, flying from Atlantic City, N.J., to Owatonna, a town of 25,000, went down in a cornfield northwest of Degner Regional Airport, Ringhofer said. The wreckage was not visible to reporters because tall corn obscured the crash site.

The debris was scattered 500 feet beyond the airport's runway.

The plane had been scheduled to land at 9:42 a.m., then take off at 11:40 a.m. for Crossville, Tenn.

The only crash victim publicly identified as of early Thursday evening was Karen Sandland, 44, a project manager on the Revel casino project who worked out of Tishman Construction's Newark, N.J. office, company spokesman Bud Perrone said. She was the only Tishman employee on board, said Richard M. Kielar, the company's senior vice president.

Atlantic City Mayor Scott Evans said two high-ranking Revel executives also were among the victims, but he declined to identify them.

Revel CEO Kevin DeSanctis issued a statement Thursday night mourning the loss of employees from his company, Tishman and APG International, a Glassboro, N.J., company that specializes in glass facades. DeSanctis did not identify the victims or say how many of his employees died.

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