By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, Jan 25 (Reuters) – A private jet crashed in flames as it was taking off from a Maine airport with eight aboard, the U.S. aviation regulator said, but their fate and identities were not immediately known.
Sunday’s crash of a twin-engine turbo-fan jet Bombardier Challenger 600 at Bangor International Airport happened at about 7:45 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement, adding that it planned to investigate.
Few details were available, but a government official briefed on the matter told Reuters there was a significant fire after the crash.
Light snow had started falling at the airport before the crash, weather reports showed, but authorities gave no immediate indication that weather played a role in the accident.
A winter storm warning covered most of Maine, including Bangor, the state’s third-largest city.
The plane had arrived in Maine from Texas, the government official said. The company listed as its registered owner shares a Houston address with Arnold & Itkin, a personal injury law firm.
FAA records show the craft went into service in April 2020.
The FAA said it would investigate the crash along with the National Transportation Safety Board.
(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Suzanne McGee in Providence, Rhode Island, Jonathan Stempel in Washington, DC and Disha Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Sergio Non, Tom Hogue and Clarence Fernandez)
