Pilot parachutes, passengers survive plane crash near Kansas City

[KS Toronado]

BATES COUNTY —A pilot and six passengers survived a small plane crash that occurred just after 1p.m. Saturday near the Butler Memorial Airport, approximately one hour south of Kansas City.

First responders found the single-engine Cessna C206 in a hay field east of the airport runways, according to the Bates County, Missouri Sheriff.

The pilot had been able to parachute from the plane prior to the crash and was located at a hanger at the airport. EMS treated everyone involved at the scene and released them, according to the sheriff's office.

The plane is a total loss. The Bates County Sheriff’s Office is assisting the NTSB and the FAA in their investigations. Authorities released no additional details including the name of the pilot.

https://hayspost.com/posts/103f5560-eee6-4220-a547-a576089ee71d

Wow, if everyone had died the pilot would have had a lot of explaining to do.

[brush]

1. The pilot still has a lot of explaining to do. He parachuted out and left everyone to die...

instead of trying to land the plane. What a jerk.

He's no Sully Sullenberger that's for sure.

[tanyev]

3. No kidding. Gonna be lawsuits for sure.

Maybe even criminal charges. Was he trying to kill everyone???

[usaf-vet]

9. Sounds more like a Trump supporter. "The hell with everyone else I AM THE ONLY IMPORTANT ONE HERE" .

I hope the FAA takes away his pilot's license.... for starts.

[brush]

10. He should never get it back.

[Ocelot II]

27. See #21. Everyone parachuted out; they weren't abandoned.

[ShazzieB]

38. Yes, and the person who wrote this mess of an article should bbe taken to task, not the pilot.

Shame on them, and shame on the editor who let it be published with so much important info missing.

[Ocelot II]

39. Not to mention the people who assumed from this sketchy report that the pilot was an a-hole

who abandoned his passengers and deserves to lose his license. I hope the people in his community eventually got the story straight and didn't leap to the same conclusions.

[Irish_Dem]

13. There should be an investigation.

Was there a possible motive of some sort.
To harm the passengers.

[Ocelot II]

21. *Everybody* parachuted out of the plane - the article is incomplete and misleading.

https://www.kctv5.com/2024/05/25/seven-people-survive-plane-crash-near-butler-memorial-airport/ It appears to have been a skydiving operation. So we can stop busting on the pilot now?

[Wonder Why]

35. I like the OP story. More my kind of joke - like the airline pilot who died peacefully in his sleep while

his passengers died screaming.

Required by Law -

[littlemissmartypants]

37. Or maybe just read more?

[Rhiannon12866]

40. Thank you! Yikes, that would have been beyond terrifying!

Though likely equally terrifying for me if I had to parachute out of the plane...

[magicarpet]

2. What a hero,...

... that fucking pilot wasn't.

[Ocelot II]

22. See #21.

[CrispyQ]

4. So the asshole was wearing his chute or did he take time to put it on while telling his passengers he was bailing?

Wow.

[Ocelot II]

23. See #21.

[bluedigger]

5. I've never even heard of a pilot carrying a parachute on a small plane like that.

WTF?

[cloudbase]

8. It's very common in the glider community.

[bluedigger]

15. A Cessna 206 isn't a glider.

I've been up in a glider, and solo'd and owned a Piper Clipper taildragger, although I never got my license. My ex got her glider license at 16, and went on to a career in civil aviation. I never even saw a parachute during flight training, much less received any instruction on using one.

[Ocelot II]

24. They seem to have been skydivers, and they all parachuted out. See #21.

[getagrip_already]

6. Did one of the passengers grab the stick after he bailed?

A small plane would still have some response to rudder and flaps even without the engine.

A passenger or someone in the copilot seat could have glided it in.

But not the pilot. He gets the Maga award.

[Ocelot II]

25. See #21.

[Baitball Blogger]

7. Sounds like a metaphor for anyone who has abandonment issues.

[usaf-vet]

11. It sounds like he knew ahead of time the plane was not safe.

[Irish_Dem]

12. Yes that is what I am thinking too.

Why bring a parachute with you.

And so quickly put it on and abandon ship with passengers onboard.

[Ocelot II]

26. See #21. Everyone wears a parachute in a skydiving plane, and everyone parachuted out.

[Irish_Dem]

33. OK that makes sense. The excerpts were a bit misleading.

[Ocelot II]

30. If you know the plane is unsafe you don't fly it at all.

These were skydivers, and the pilot did not abandon the passengers, all of whom parachuted out. https://www.kctv5.com/2024/05/25/seven-people-survive-plane-crash-near-butler-memorial-airport/

[Ocelot II]

14. The C-206 is often used as a jump plane for skydivers.

If that's what this was, it might explain why the pilot was wearing a parachute. Maybe this was a skydiving operation and the passengers had them as well, so the pilot was expecting everybody else to jump. But I'll be checking for the NTSB report on this one.

This is a C-206:

[bluedigger]

16. This makes the most sense as an explanation.

Although the pilot abandoning his plane while the wings were still on begs further details. It's hard not to attribute malicious intent.

[bluedigger]

18. The crash photo doesn't look like one anyone would walk away from.

Much less all six passengers. I'm thinking everyone jumped.

[Ocelot II]

19. It's really hard to tell from the photo if that's the entire plane or just part of it.

And the article isn't at all clear about whether the other passengers were in it when it crashed. Maybe they all jumped, and if that was the case the pilot shouldn't be blamed for jumping as well. More news will come, I'm sure.

[Ocelot II]

20. More news here: Everybody parachuted from the plane before it crashed.

As I guessed, it appears to have been a skydiving operation. https://www.kctv5.com/2024/05/25/seven-people-survive-plane-crash-near-butler-memorial-airport/ So we can stop busting on the pilot now.

[Srkdqltr]

28. You can tell who are the readers and who are not.

[Ocelot II]

29. It's really easy to jump to wrong conclusions

on the basis of an incomplete news article. The cited article referred to the pilot parachuting out of the plane, leading people to conclude that he must have abandoned his passengers - and excoriating him accordingly - me too, until I realized there had to be more to the story. So I got to thinking, a C-206 is often used for skydiving, and nobody wears a parachute just to fly one around, so this was probably a skydiving operation. It was hard to tell from the photo whether that was all or part of the plane, but it was obvious that there had been no fire, meaning it probably ran out of fuel. Skydiving planes carry minimum fuel so they can reach jump altitude with a full passenger load as quickly as possible, further evidence that these were skydivers, meaning they all would have had parachutes, and that the plane ran out of fuel before it could get back to the airport. Or maybe there was an in-flight breakup of some part of the aircraft. If they were high enough they could safely jump out.

But sure enough, a quick google led to more news articles stating that everybody had parachuted out. https://www.kctv5.com/2024/05/25/seven-people-survive-plane-crash-near-butler-memorial-airport/ The pilot did not abandon his passengers; on the contrary, he did the right thing by telling them to jump.

So maybe when we see a news item that seems outrageous in some way, we should look a little further before we reach outrageous conclusions?

[The Unmitigated Gall]

31. Heartily agree...

Except, to point out that in this day and age, especially after the Costa Concordia incident, the concept of a "Gotta Be Me" pilot who would bail and leave his charges to their doom doesn't strain the imagination like it used to. But yes, the headline is reprehensible.

[KS Toronado]

36. Just got back home

Thanks for finding the https://www.kctv5.com/ article with the rest of the story. From what I see someone at
www.kctv5.com got in a hurry to post the accident (Published: May. 25, 2024 at 4:46 PM CDT|Updated: 11 hours
ago), Hays Post seen it and re-posted it word for word as found 4 hours later at (Posted May 25, 2024 9:00 PM),
then www.kctv5 updated their website (11 hours ago) or 7 hours after the Hays Post posted theirs.

I sent Hays Post an email about
https://www.kctv5.com/2024/05/25/seven-people-survive-plane-crash-near-butler-memorial-airport/,
have no idea if anyone is working on a 3 day weekend.

I thought something didn't add up when I found this article , thanks for finding the rest of the story.

[usaf-vet]

32. This is what I read from the ORIGINAL post.

BATES COUNTY —A pilot and six passengers survived a small plane crash that occurred just after 1p.m. Saturday near the Butler Memorial Airport, approximately one hour south of Kansas City.

First responders found the single-engine Cessna C206 in a hay field east of the airport runways, according to the Bates County, Missouri Sheriff.

The pilot had been able to parachute from the plane prior to the crash and was located at a hanger at the airport. EMS treated everyone involved at the scene and released them, according to the sheriff's office.

The plane is a total loss. The Bates County Sheriff’s Office is assisting the NTSB and the FAA in their investigations. Authorities released no additional details, including the name of the pilot.

Here is the ORIGINAL link:
https://hayspost.com/posts/103f5560-eee6-4220-a547-a576089ee71d

Where does it say they all had parachutes and were skydivers?

My original was at 09:10 in response to an 08:08 original post.

Your post was at 11:47. Obviously, the story was updated at some point.

Glad they ALL survived.

[Ocelot II]

34. The original article was misleading in that it was incomplete.

The reporter for that publication should have added that the passengers also parachuted to safety. The problem with the incomplete report was that it led people to conclude that the pilot had abandoned the passengers.