A small plane carrying five adults and a child remained in contact with air traffic control before crashing Tuesday night in a wooded area of Wisconsin. All six people aboard were killed as investigators began examining the aircraft’s final moments.
The Piper PA-46 was flying back from Kenosha to Menomonie when it crashed in the Town of Dellona, in Sauk County, according to the Sauk County Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities received several reports of a downed aircraft at about 9:31 p.m. Tuesday. Emergency crews were sent to the Park Lane area, where first responders found the wreckage in thick woods west of Herwig Road.
A map shows Dellona, Wisconsin, where six people died in a plane crash Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026. (Fox News)
First responders work at the scene of a small plane crash in the Town of Dellona in Sauk County, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026. (FOX6 Milwaukee WITI)
Rescue teams initially searched the crash site for survivors while investigators focused on identifying the aircraft and determining how many people had been on board.
Authorities later confirmed that all six occupants had died at the scene. Their names have not yet been made public.
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Rescuers recovered the bodies of all five adults and one child who were aboard the small plane, officials said. (FOX6 Milwaukee WITI)
Investigators are examining the plane’s communications with a nearby air traffic control tower before the crash. They are also determining whether weather conditions contributed to the deadly flight.
“We know that they had contact with the tower prior to the crash and investigators are looking into that today to find out what that communication was,” Sauk County Sheriff Chip Meister told FOX6 Milwaukee.
Meister said officials had not determined who owned the plane. He confirmed that the aircraft was not used for commercial service.
The crash did not damage any structures, and no one on the ground was injured, the sheriff’s office said.
Authorities are investigating the aircraft’s final communications with an air traffic control tower before it went down. (FOX6 Milwaukee WITI)
The crash site remained secured Wednesday while investigators worked to reconstruct what happened during the fatal flight.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) were notified and will oversee the investigation into the cause of the Wisconsin plane crash, according to the sheriff’s office.
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