Small airplane fell apart in the air in Wisconsin, killing 6

A small airplane that went down in northern Wisconsin fell apart in the air, killing the six people onboard, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday.

The Cessna 421 that crashed at 3:21 a.m. Saturday left from Waukegan, Illinois, and was flying to Winnipeg in the Canadian province of Manitoba, NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss said.

“The debris field suggested an in-flight break up,” Weiss said.

Lt. Gabe Lind at the Price County Sheriff’s Office said the debris field from the crash stretched about a quarter mile from a heavily wooded area onto a state highway.

The six people killed were identified Monday as 70-year-old Kevin James King, 56-year-old Thomas DeMauro, 21-year-old Kyle DeMauro, 63-year-old James Francis, 69-year-old Charles Tomlitz, and 45-year-old George Tomlitz. The sheriff’s office has said they were headed to Canada for a fishing trip.

The DeMauros and King are from Bensenville, Illinois. Francis is from Norco, California. Charles Tomlitz is from Addison, Illinois, and George Tomlitz is from Brookfield, Illinois. Authorities did not say how they knew each other or the DeMauros relation to each other.

NTSB investigators say there was a discussion between the pilot of the plane and air traffic controllers about “local weather phenomenon” in Catawba, Wisconsin, which is near the crash site just southwest of the city of Phillips. Soon after, the aircraft dropped off radar.

Weiss said investigators are still trying to determine what type of weather the plane encountered and whether it caused the crash.

Thomas DeMauro was a physical education teacher at Tioga Elementary School in Bensenville, Illinois, and Charles Tomlitz was a maintenance director for the district, according to a Facebook post from the school.