Atlanta CEO, 7 employees walk away from fiery plane crash in California
Ten people, including the chief executive officer of a metro Atlanta-based paper and packaging company, walked away from a fiery plane crash involving a private jet in northern California, officials said.
The crash happened Wednesday morning at the Oroville Municipal Airport north of Sacramento, according to officials from the National Transportation Safety Board.
Michael Doss, the CEO of Atlanta-based Graphic Packaging International, and seven members of the company's executive staff were aboard the charter flight along with two pilots, GPI spokeswoman Sue Appleyard told AJC.com on Thursday.
The group had been visiting the company’s plant in Oroville and were leaving to visit a facility in Oregon about 10:30 a.m. local time when the plane went off the runway during takeoff, she said.
For reasons that are not clear, the pilot of the Cessna Citation aborted takeoff, NTSB officials said. Appleyard said she didn’t know if the plane made it off the ground before takeoff was aborted.
Everyone got out in time and were uninjured. Appleyard said the cause is unknown and authorities have told the company it will take weeks to find out. She said the staff, many of whom are based in Atlanta, are back home. Appleyard said they flew back.
Once the fire was extinguished, only the shell of the burned plane and about half an acre of singed grass remained.
The Federal Aviation Administration is assisting the NTSB in the investigation.
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Asia Simone Burns is a watchdog reporter for the AJC. Burns was formerly an intern in AJC’s newsroom and now writes about crime. She is a graduate of Samford University and has previously reported for NPR and WABE, Atlanta’s NPR member station.
Ben Brasch is the reporter tasked with keeping Fulton County government accountable. The Florida native moved to Atlanta for a job with The AJC. If there's something important to you going on in Fulton, he wants to know about it. Help him better metro Atlanta by dropping a line, anonymously or otherwise.
