Plane carrying three people, 56 rescue dogs crashes on Wisconsin golf course

The three human passengers are being treated for non-life-threatening injuries

A plane carrying three people and 50-plus rescue dogs from Louisiana crashed Tuesday morning on a golf course outside Milwakuee. None of the human passengers are believed to have suffered life-threatening injuries.

The plane was en route from New Orleans to Waukesha to deliver the dogs to the city’s animal welfare society when it apparently lost one of its engines as it approached its destination. According to reporting from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the plane crashed onto the course at the Western Lakes Golf Club in Pewaukee, hit a patch of trees, lost its wings and eventually skidded to a stop in the snow.

A number of the dogs sustained injuries, but their conditions were not yet known. Officials from the animal welfare society arrived at the course shortly after the crash to help treat the dogs, a number of whom have since been transported to the welfare society’s building.

Golf course staff were among the first responders to the crash, assisting those on board and working with the emergency responders who arrived shortly thereafter.

The Federal Aviation Administration is currently assessing the crash, the cause of which is not yet known. Because the plane spilled fuel as it went skidding across the course, the Department of Natural Resources and the Waukesha County Hazmat are also on the scene, with special attention given to the golf course’s status as a wetland area.

Jason Hoelz, the general manager of the golf club, told the Journal Sentinel that club employees heard the plane crashing.

“I was in a building up here and didn’t hear anything, but there was a couple employees working on the course that heard this plane coming down and witnessed it hitting the fifth green, crashing between two trees, (going) through a marsh and another 100 feet through the second hole fairway and onto the third hole, where it uprooted another tree and came to a rest,” Mr Hoelz told the newspaper. “In total, it skidded around a few hundred yards.”

Mr Hoelz also noted that it was ultimately lucky that the weather has turned cold and snowy in the Upper Midwest in recent days after an unusually temperate fall. Last week at this time, scores of golfers were playing on the section of the course that the plane skidded through.