Preliminary information has been released into the crash of a historic military airplane that killed two people in Atchison County, Kansas earlier this month.

The National Transportation Safety Board released its preliminary aviation accident report Monday for the P-51 Mustang that crashed around 10:30 a.m. July 16, one day after it flew in the Amelia Earhart Festival. As reported, the pilot and a passenger both died in the crash. According to the Kansas Highway Patrol crash report, they were identified as 34-year-old Bethany L. Root of Atchison and 64-year-old Vlado Lenoch of Burr Ridge, Illinois.

According to the report, the plane was destroyed when it impacted trees and terrain around 2.5 miles northeast of Cummings. It stated, according to several witnesses located between K59 and the accident site, the airplane was observed performing aerobatics at a high altitude. A witness, located further to the south of K59, and several hundred feet from the accident location, observed the airplane fly over nearby power lines between 25 ft and 30 ft above the ground. The airplane pitched up to climb in a near vertical attitude and then the nose turned to the left and the airplane turned and pitched down in a nose low attitude. The airplane descended towards terrain and just prior to impacting the ground the tail of the airplane came up.

The airplane impacted the ground just short of a grove of trees. A large crater marked the initial ground impact point and contained bent and torn metal, the engine, transmission, and propeller assembly. The empennage and fragmented pieces of the fuselage were located 25 feet northwest of the propeller assembly. Fragmented pieces of both wings, the rudder, and the fuselage were scattered in the debris field that extended over 400 feet from the initial impact point.