Skydiving plane crash investigations often reveal poor maintenance and weak safety oversight

Poor maintenance is often a factor when skydiving planes crash like one did in Missouri on Sunday, and the National Transportation Safety Board has said in past investigations that weak oversight of the skydiving industry can allow problems to go unnoticed.

It is far too soon to know what caused this weekend's crash that happened shortly after a plane took off from a small airport about an hour south of Kansas City. Twelve people died in the crash while some of their family members watched from the ground at Butler Memorial Airport. The NTSB will work to determine what happened over the next year or more before publishing its final report on the cause although the agency will release some preliminary details over the next month.