Eight die in Minnesota plane crash

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A small business jet crashed near an airport in southern Minnesota on Thursday, killing eight people on board, officials said.

The victims were customers of an architectural glass company who had been headed to Owatonna, a town south of Minneapolis where the company is headquartered, the firm, Viracon Inc., said.

A spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said seven were killed on impact and an eighth died in a hospital.

He said there was confusion over how many people were on the jet and that there may have been a ninth victim.

The plane was a Hawker 800 jet operating as East Coast Jets Flight 81. It had left Atlantic City, New Jersey, earlier in the day, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The charter operator's Web site said the aircraft can carry eight passengers.

It crashed near a runway at the airport close to Owatonna. Local media reports said heavy thunderstorms and high winds were sweeping the region at the time.

A spokeswoman for Viracon said those on the plane had been set to attend a meeting at its offices, and that no one on the plane worked for the company.

Viracon was recently awarded a contract to supply architectural glass for New York's new Freedom Tower on the World Trade Center site.

(Reporting by Michael Conlon, Editing by Xavier Briand)