A pilot was killed after a charter plane he was operating crashed short of the runway at a Missouri airport on Tuesday morning, according to authorities and reports.
The Aero Commander 500B plane crashed short of the runway at the Spirit of St. Louis Airport around 3:40 a.m., according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Video obtained by Fox 2 showed the aircraft lose altitude almost immediately after takeoff, attempting to loop around to the end of the runway before bursting into flames upon impact.
The sole person onboard, 65-year-old pilot Edward Ruhbeck, was killed in the fiery crash, St. Louis County Police confirmed to the outlet.
The plane, owned by Kansas City-based charter company Central Air Southwest, plummeted while the airport’s control tower was closed — leading the wreckage to be discovered three hours later, the outlet reported.
Air traffic is still typically monitored by Terminal Radar Approach, but aviation experts told the outlet that Ruhbeck might have never activated a flight plan because the crash happened so close to the airport.
“I had a gut feeling because it just didn’t look right,” witness Diana Krazer told KSDK. “It just looked like it was not traveling like a normal plane would travel. The motion was a little up and down.”
“It was very unusual seeing a person that you know was alive one minute, and you didn’t know that they were going to the end of their life. It’s shocking,” she said.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the incident, authorities said.
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