Five die in single-engine plane crash in Alberta

updated 7:41 p.m. ET March 28, 2008

WAINWRIGHT, Alberta - A single-engine plane crashed Friday in remote eastern Alberta and all five people aboard were killed, including employees of a company hit by a fatal crash last year.

Four men and one woman were confirmed dead in the crash of the PA-46 Piper Malibu, which went down in the morning near Wainwright, 140 miles southeast of Edmonton, the capital of Alberta province.

A search involving military and police was launched after air traffic controllers saw the plane disappear from their radar.

The plane, owned by A.D. Williams Engineering, was carrying three senior employees and two contractors from Alberta's capital to a meeting in Winnipeg, company spokeswoman Sue O'Connor said. She declined to identify the dead.

O'Connor said the crash occurred five months to the day after the firm lost two senior members in another plane crash.

"It's incredibly difficult for this firm," O'Connor said. "Everyone is shocked."

A.D. Williams founder Allen Williams died Oct. 28, when his Cessna 172 crashed in a rocky creek bed in British Columbia. Employee Steven Sutton, 49, also died, but Williams' 3-year-old granddaughter Kate Williams was found alive at the crash scene hanging upside down in her car baby seat.

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