Reports Blames Weather for Plane Crash

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) _ A preliminary report on a plane that crashed in Polk County, Florida that killed a Kansas family says the plane quickly began losing altitude after changing its flight path to avoid bad weather.

The National Transportation Safety Board issued its preliminary report Tuesday on the June 7 crash that killed Junction City businessman Ronald Bramlage, his wife, Becky, and their four children.

The report does not discuss a cause of the accident. Instead, it details what three witnesses saw or heard shortly before the crash.

The Kansas City Star reports (http://bit.ly/KTdcOg) that one of the witnesses videotaped the plane as it dropped straight down into a swampy area 50 miles southwest of Orlando, Fla.

A final report with a cause of the accident is not expected to be released for several months.