According to Captain Terry Walestski of the Olmsted County Sheriff's office, a distress call was received by air traffic controllers in the Twin Cities just before midnight on Wednesday, June 16. A report from the Sheriff's authority states that the plane is so badly damaged and burnt from the resulting fire that it has so far been impossible to identify the type of plane or the passengers onboard.
The Post-Bulletin says the crash is about one mile north of the Rochester International Airport. Firefighters were at the scene working flareups around the wreckage from burning fuel. Law enforcement were securing the scene for investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board.
The survivors, identified by New Mexico state police as 16-year-old Alexander Richey and 12-year-old Christopher Richey, were airlifted to a hospital in El Paso, Texas, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford. Their conditions were not immediately known. Killed in the crash were the boys' parents, 46-year-old Karl Lowell Richey and his wife, 44-year-old Keri Richey; and Rodney and Delaine Duree, both 50, and their son, 11-year-old Lake Duree.
Video of the crash coverage.
At this point officials are unsure of the plane's origin or destination and they are not releasing the tail number of the plane yet.