By Tom Weber, KWMU/AP
St. Louis, MO – Emergency crews near Belleville are on the scene where a small jet crashed just more than an hour ago. The plane was taking off from the Downtown Airport in Cahokia when it crashed in a farm field in Millstadt and burst into flames. The fire is now out. Donald Schram lives near where the crash happened and was reading his paper when he heard the plane. It wsa too low to be any normal flight going over the house," he said.
"So I ran out the door to see where it went and when I got out the door I could see the smoke out the field, right out my front door.
"I was going to go call 911 and by this time, I saw the neighbor coming out with his four-wheeler and he had already called them and I could hear the sirens by then. The sheriff's [deputies] were there in two or three minutes."
Four people were on board and survived, one person was airlifted to an unknown airport. No word yet on the cause of the crash or the condition of the plane's passengers.