The plane, a twin-engine Beechcraft BE65, crashed under unknown circumstances while taking off from Dillingham Airfield on Oahu’s North Shore about 6:30 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration said. The plane was destroyed by the fire, according to the agency.
“In my 40 years as a firefighter here in Hawaii, this is the most tragic aircraft incident that we’ve had,” Honolulu Fire Department Chief Manny Neves said at a news conference Friday night. “We had some helicopters with the military, but this is a civilian plane that went down.”
The authorities have identified the skydiving company but have not released its name. The names of the victims were also not released.
The Hawaii Department of Transportation said Saturday that 11 people were on the plane and that there were no survivors. It was unclear how many of those on board were passengers.
Neves said the cause of the crash was not known.
The National Transportation Safety Board was sending a team to investigate, an agency spokesman, Eric Weiss, said.