BUTTE, MONT., ST. HELENA, CALIF., AND REDLANDS — The plane that suddenly nose-dived into a cemetery in Montana this weekend killed three young California families bound for a ski vacation, including two sisters, their husbands and their five children.
Federal investigators, sifting through the charred wreckage Monday, warned that the cause may not be known for many months, but were looking into whether the plane was carrying too much weight or was disabled by icing or mechanical problems.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday, March 25, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 National Desk 1 inches; 31 words Type of Material: Correction
Plane crash: An article in Tuesday's Section A about three California families killed in a plane crash in Montana misspelled the first name of Jacobson family spokeswoman JoAline Olson as JaAline.
The pilot and 13 passengers, including seven children under the age of 10, died when the plane slammed into the ground in a fiery crash as it was approaching the Butte airport. The private plane, which began its journey in Southern California with a veteran San Bernardino pilot at the controls, had only 10 seats, said Mark Rosenker, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash. But Rosenker stressed that it would be wrong to assume it was overloaded without knowing the weights of the passengers, especially the young children.
"I don't want to have everybody jump to conclusions," he said. "We are going to be looking at each and every one of the factors. . . . This will be a long and tedious investigation."
Among the victims were the sisters -- Vanessa Pullen, 37, a pediatrician, and her husband, Mike, 39, a dentist, and Amy Jacobson, 35, a dental hygienist, and her husband, Erin, 37, an ophthalmologist.
The women were daughters of Irving M. "Bud" Feldkamp III, a prominent Redlands dentist who is president of the leasing company that owned the plane. Feldkamp had traveled ahead to Montana to meet family members for the vacation at the exclusive Yellowstone Club resort near Bozeman.
Feldkamp, his wife and other family members visited the crash site Monday and spent about 45 minutes there. He told the Associated Press that he learned of the crash in a call from a nephew.
"He saw it on CNN. He said, 'Nobody survived.' And we knew it was our plane," Feldkamp said. "We were going on a vacation with all the grandkids. They were all excited about skiing."
The Jacobsons had three children: Taylor, 4, Ava, 3, and Jude, 2.
The Pullens, who lived in Galt, south of Sacramento, had two: Sydney, 9, and Christopher, 7.
