6 dead, including child, in small plane crash near Wisconsin Dells, sheriff says

Six people are dead, including a child, in a small plane crash Tuesday night in south-central Wisconsin, according to the Sauk County Sheriff's Office.

The Sauk County Sheriff's Office received multiple reports of a downed aircraft around 9:30 p.m. Authorities said the plane crashed in a wooded area near Mirror Lake State Park in the Town of Dellona, about 10 miles west of Wisconsin Dells, as rain fell and a thunderstorm moved through the area.

Authorities said no structures were damaged and no one on the ground was hurt.

Five adults and one child were on the plane and found dead, the sheriff's office said, including pilot Ron Riek, a businessman from the town of Woodville. The names of his passengers have not been released.

Authorities say the plane was making a return trip from Kenosha to Menomonie. It was a six-seat, single-engine Piper PA-46.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday that the pilot reported icing on the wings while the plane was flying at 24,000 feet and requested to descend. Air traffic control approved the descent, and the plane began a right descending turn that increased in rate until communications and tracking data were lost.

The plane contacted an air traffic control tower before the crash, authorities said. The sheriff's office and the Federal Aviation Administration said investigators are reviewing those transmissions and whether weather played a role.

A few families who live nearby said they were initially confused about what they heard at the time of the crash.

"It sounded like thunder, sounded like quiet thunder, and then all of a sudden you just hear sirens," said an area resident. "It's a sound you won't get out of your head." 

"I heard the crash and boom, and the weird thing is my pets all reacted to it," said another resident. "Usually they don't react to thunder, but I thought it was thunder."

The NTSB is leading the investigation, and says a preliminary report should be available within 30 days.