By Carolyn Cole
Published on March 6, 2008

Federal aviation officials are continuing their investigation of a small jet airplane crash Tuesday afternoon a few miles north of the Mustang area.

As firefighters put out flames and investigators started combing through debris, Robin Price was trying to bring an asthma inhaler to her mother, who lives in the 800 block of Mustang Plant Road. Police had blocked the road, but officers promised to deliver the medication.

“They (her parents) said it (the plane) clipped all of the trees down there, and it blew up right after it got past her house,” Price said, adding she had talked to them on the phone. The fumes from the resulting grass fires and debris were making her mother sick, she said.

“They said they heard a loud boom and came outside,” Price said, adding her father, a retired paramedic, went to try and help, but those onboard were dead.

Oklahoma City Police Sgt. Paco Balderrama said the plane took off from Wiley Post Regional Airport at 3:13 p.m., and dispatchers started receiving reports of the crash at 3:19 p.m.

“We know there are no survivors,” he said.

FAA spokesman Roland Herwig said the twin-engine aircraft was traveling from Wiley Post Airport to Mankato, Minn., when it crashed about five miles southwest of the airport.

The plane was a Cessna Model 500 and was registered to Southwest Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Clinic.