Six people, including a child, died when a small plane crashed in wooded southern Wisconsin after the pilot reported icing and contact with air traffic control was lost.
Deputies found the wreckage in a densely wooded area of Dellona, Wisconsin, near Reedsburg, after reports of a downed plane came in just after 9:30 on Tuesday night, Oct. 13, 2026.
All six people aboard, five adults and one child, were located deceased on the scene. No structures were damaged and no one on the ground was hurt, the Sauk County Sheriff’s Office said.
WKOW reported the aircraft was on a return trip from Kenosha, Wisconsin, to Menomonie, Wisconsin, when it went down. Authorities have not released the names of the dead.
The Federal Aviation Administration identified the plane as a Piper PA-46. The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation, with the FAA also involved.
Preliminary information from the NTSB laid out the final stretch of the flight in stark terms.
In a statement, the NTSB said:
"the plane was flying at 24,000 feet when the pilot reported icing and requested to descend."
Controllers approved the request. What happened next ended in silence.
The NTSB said:
"Air traffic control approved the descent, and the aircraft entered a right descending turn that increased in rate until communications and data tracking were lost."
That sequence, icing report, approved descent, tightening right turn, then lost contact, is now the core of the federal probe.
Sauk County Dispatch received the first reports of a downed plane shortly after 9:30 Tuesday night. Deputies and emergency personnel searched the wooded ground near Reedsburg, a southern Wisconsin town close to the Wisconsin Dells and about 55 miles northwest of Madison.
The sheriff’s office described the outcome without soft edges:
"As a result of the search, all six occupants of the aircraft were located deceased on scene."
Officials said the plane had been in contact with a nearby air traffic control tower. Investigators are reviewing those transmissions and examining whether weather in the area played any role.
The sheriff’s office said it is working “to determine the circumstances surrounding the crash.” The dead have not been publicly identified.
NTSB investigators are traveling to the crash site. A preliminary report is expected within 30 days. The full cause has not been determined.
What is already on the record is narrow and hard. A Piper PA-46. Six souls on board, one of them a child. A pilot’s icing call at 24,000 feet. An approved descent. A right turn that steepened until the plane dropped off radar and radio. Wreckage in the trees. No one left alive.
Families are waiting on names and answers. So is the public. Weather, ice, aircraft performance, and crew action will all face the same standard: evidence, not spin.
When a plane comes down with children and adults alike, the least the system owes the dead is a straight accounting of what failed and why.
