North Carolina plane crash kills 6

updated 5:28 p.m. ET Feb. 1, 2008

MOUNT AIRY, N.C. - A twin-engine plane crashed Friday as it tried to land amid low fog at a small airport in northwest North Carolina, killing all six people on board, officials said.

Stephanie Conner, a Surry County emergency services shift supervisor, said investigators had confirmed there were no survivors.

No one on the ground was hurt, said Warren Woodberry, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

The King Air C90A split in half after falling into a grassy area between two homes near the Mount Airy airport around 11:30 a.m., the Surry County Sheriff’s Office said.

The plane took off in Cedartown, Ga., Woodberry said, and the passengers were on their way to Primland, a hunting and golf resort in Meadows of Dan, Va., about 25 miles north of the Mount Airy airport, according to Kelvin Boyette, the airport manager.

“The hunting resort van was actually waiting for them, and he was the only person who saw the plane come out of the clouds,” Boyette said.

A woman who identified herself as a Primland resort manager but declined to give her name said the company had no comment.

The plane — the only one scheduled to land at Mount Airy on Friday — missed its approach and may have been trying to circle back for another attempt before it crashed, Boyette said.

“There was a really low fog, it was raining a little bit and an occasional sleet pellet. But visibility was more than a 2½ miles,” he said.

The plane is registered to Blue Sky Airways in Dallas, Ga., according to FAA records. One of the men on board was identified by his cousin, Ronald Rakestraw, as John Rakestraw, a pilot who owned a construction company that had the same address listed on the plane’s registration.

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