A preliminary crash report from the National Transportation Safety Board says weather may have been a factor in the plane crash that killed five members of a metro Atlanta family.
Laura, Ryan, James and Harrison Van Epps and Laura’s father Roger Beggs died in the crash on Sunday on their way back to Georgia from a baseball tournament in Cooperstown, New York.
Officials told Channel 2 Action News that the Piper airplane was headed to Charleston, W.V. on its way from Oneonta, N.Y. when it crashed under unknown circumstances.
[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks ]
The plane was set to land in West Virginia to refuel before completing its flight home to Cobb County International Airport. The crash itself occurred around 1:40 p.m. on Sunday, according to the NTSB.
According to an NTSB spokesperson, preliminary details from their investigation, which began July 1, indicated that meteorological data on June 30 showed storm activity in the flight’s path.
“The plane took off from Oneonta around 1:40 p.m. Flight tracking data was lost about 12 minutes after departure. The plane crashed in near the area of Trout Creek,” NTSB said in a statement.