Napa Valley Register

Napa Valley Register, reported on its Web site late Sunday that a family of five from St. Helena, Calif., including three preschoolers, was among the victims. The Butte airport is among about 7,000 small airports around the country that have no radar coverage. A pilot approaching the airport would normally switch to a radio frequency used by aircraft coming in and out of Butte to find out if there were any other aircraft in the area. Then the pilot would use visual flight rules and follow the procedures for landing at that airport.

Steve Guidoni, of Butte, was driving by with his wife when he saw the crash. "It just went straight into the ground. I went over there to try to help. I thought maybe I would pull someone out of the fire." Guidoni said he saw luggage and seat cushions lying around, but no bodies. He said the biggest piece of the plane was the size of a kitchen table. "You wouldn't even know a plane was there," he said. Nick Dipasquale, 19, was working at a gas station across the street. "I heard a loud bang," he said. "It sounded like someone ran into the building."

NTSB investigator Kristi Dunks would not say if there had been a distress call from the pilot. It was partly cloudy, visibility was 10 miles and wind was blowing from the northwest around 10 mph at the time of the crash, according to the National Weather Service. It was the worst plane crash in America since a commuter plane last month fell on a house in a suburb of Buffalo, N.Y., killing all 49 passengers and a man in the home. Before the Buffalo crash there hadn't been an accident involving a commercial airliner in the U.S. in which there were fatalities in more than two years.