LITTLE ROCK -- Five employees of North Little Rock's CTEH died in a plane crash in Little Rock around noon Wednesday, the environmental consulting firm said in a news release.
"We are incredibly saddened to report the loss of our Little Rock colleagues," said Paul Nony, senior vice president of CTEH, in the release. "We ask everyone to keep the families of those lost and the entire CTEH team in their thoughts and prayers."
The small aircraft crashed while taking off from the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport, leaving no survivors, local authorities said earlier on Wednesday.
Five people were on board the twin-engine Beech BE20 plane, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which also said that information is preliminary and subject to change. CTEH said the pilot was one of the five employees who died.
The FAA said the plane was headed to John Glenn Columbus International Airport in Ohio.
The plane crashed in a wooded, rocky area on 3M Road, near the 3M plant at 3110 Walters Road, authorities said.
That's about a mile from the airport, said Lt. Cody Burk, a spokesman for the Pulaski County sheriff's office.
The weather was bad at the time, Burk said, but he said the final call on the cause of the crash was not his to make. National Transportation Safety Board officials were due to arrive later in the day to investigate.
Airport spokesperson Shane Carter said the airport doesn't communicate weather advisories to aircraft and that any such advisory would come from the FAA.
The FAA referred the Democrat-Gazette to the NTSB when asked whether the aircraft was informed of the National Weather Service-issued wind advisory that was in effect on Wednesday.
Wisps of white smoke could be seen rising from behind a shed on the plant's property, but nearby residents said the fire was initially much more intense.
Dennis Gordon said he was standing on 39th Street when he heard the wind pick up and then an explosion. Several smaller explosions followed, and then a huge fire, he said.
"It was just red, then it starts turning black, and there's this burnt smell," Gordon said.
He said he'd watched a plume of black smoke rise over the trees before fire crews arrived and extinguished it.
The investigation into the crash will be handled by Pulaski County, Little Rock Police spokesman Mark Edwards said, but Little Rock Police Chief Heath Helton and other police leadership were on the scene.
Emergency personnel from a variety of agencies, including the Little Rock fire department, were on the scene Wednesday, Burk said.
He said the site is about 100 yards from the dividing line between city and county jurisdiction, so all area agencies pitched in.
The Little Rock police mobile command center truck was on the scene Wednesday afternoon, and Mayor Frank Scott could be seen in the doorway as officers worked on the scene.
Emergency vehicles appear near the location where a small aircraft crashed while taking off from the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock, Ark., Wednesday Feb. 22, 2023. (Staton Breidenthal/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette via AP)