U.S. Bank says executive believed to have been killed in small plane crash in Minnesota

CNN

By Emma Tucker and Zoe Sottile, CNN

(CNN) — An executive at U.S. Bank is believed to have been killed when a small plane crashed into a home in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, on Saturday afternoon, U.S. Bank said in a statement on Sunday.

The plane was registered to Terry Dolan, U.S. Bank’s vice chair and chief administration officer, the corporation told CNN in a statement. “The medical examiner’s office has not been able to confirm whether he was on board, but we believe he was,” the statement read.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with him, his family and friends, and anyone who may have been affected by yesterday’s tragic incident,” the statement continued.

Jessica L. Campbell, the forensic anthropologist at the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office, said earlier Sunday that the office was unable to provide any information about the victim’s identity, citing the “ongoing investigation.”

The aircraft, a small executive transport plane capable of carrying six people, struck a home, setting it on fire around 12:20 p.m. local time. The plane was headed to Anoka County-Blaine Airport in Minneapolis from Des Moines International Airport in Iowa, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.

There are no survivors from the small plane, Brooklyn Park Fire Chief Shawn Conway said at a Saturday news conference. Preliminary information shows that one person was on board the plane, Tim Sorensen, an aviation accident investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said at a Sunday afternoon news conference.

One person was inside the home at the time of the crash and was uninjured after escaping on their own, Conway said Sunday. He described the house that was struck as “a total loss.”

Video footage from the scene shows the home fully engulfed in flames as several onlookers are heard being told by fire officials on a loudspeaker: “The house is on fire. Please back away from the house near the fire!” Several fire trucks were on site.

“They lost their home immediately, as you can see by the damage,” Conway said of the house’s residents.

When the fire department arrived on scene, the incident commander saw a “fully involved structure fire,” Conway said. The aircraft wasn’t found until after the fire was contained, he added.

“What we’re asking for right now is for the neighborhood to please give us a little opportunity to continue to process the scene and work through this. There were no occupant fatalities,” Conway said.

The NTSB is leading the investigation into the crash, Conway said Sunday. The agency is currently documenting the crash site and plans to start recovering the aircraft later Sunday afternoon, Sorensen said. The NTSB will release a preliminary report about the crash in around two weeks.

“The investigation is just getting started,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of answers right now.”

Investigators will examine “all other aspects that may have affected the operation, such as the weather, such as the background experience of the pilot, the status of the aircraft, maintenance of the aircraft,” Sorensen added.

A Ring camera captured the moment the plane appears to fall out of the sky before it is heard crashing into a neighborhood. Cindy Leitschuh told CNN her family had unknowingly caught video of the plane.

While her husband Curt and their 8-year-old son were out front playing catch, they had set off their Ring camera.

“My 8-year-old son actually saw the plane going up and down,” Leitschuh said. “He thought it was a drone. And then he’s like: ‘Yeah, I saw this plane going up and down and left and right, and then I saw a bunch of black smoke.’ So then my husband went and looked at the Ring and saw it was on our Ring.”

In a statement on X, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said: “My team is in touch with local officials on the scene in Brooklyn Park and we are monitoring the situation closely. Grateful to the first responders answering the call.”

At the Saturday news conference, Brooklyn Park Mayor Hollies Winston thanked Walz for “supporting us and providing resources to our city.”

“I will say that as a community and as a city, we’re very much going to surround the families that have been affected by this,” Winston said.

The suburb of Brooklyn Park lies about 11 miles north of Minneapolis.

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CNN’s Sarah Dewberry contributed to this report.