UPDATE: Officials with the center posted on The Jumping Place Skydiving Center’s Facebook page in the wake of the crash.
“Today we have suffered an enormous loss. NTSB [National Transportation and Safety Board] will be investigating the crash. We’ve lost loved ones. Please be respectful of loved ones,” the post reads. A phone number also was included.
“We’ve all lost parts of our family,” the post continued. More than 140 comments had been made on the post by 7:30 p.m. Sunday.
SWAINSBORO, Ga. (AP) – A coroner says four people have been killed and another has been seriously injured in a small plane crash at an airport in Georgia.
The U.S. Army Parachute Team, the Golden Knights, posted on Facebook that 31-year-old Staff Sgt. Aliaksandr Bahrytsevich of North Carolina was among those killed after the plane crashed after takeoff at the East Georgia Regional Airport on Saturday. He was off duty at the time.
Emanuel County Deputy Coroner Randy Love told the Augusta Chronicle that a fifth person aboard is in critical condition. The names of the others killed in the crash have not been released.
Bahrytsevich was a member of the Golden Knights’ Black Demonstration Team and originally from Belarus.
Love says the plane is owned by The Jumping Place Skydiving Center in Georgia.