Wisconsin plane crash kills six, including child — What happened before the aircraft disappeared from radar?

The six-seat, single-engine Piper PA-46 aircraft was travelling from Kenosha to Menomonie when it crashed near Mirror Lake State Park in the Town of Dellona shortly before 10 pm local time, authorities said.

Six people, including one child, were killed after a small plane crashed in a wooded area near Wisconsin Dells in the US state of Wisconsin on Tuesday night, the Associated Press (AP) reported, citing the Sauk County Sheriff's Department.

The six-seat, single-engine Piper PA-46 aircraft was travelling from Kenosha to Menomonie when it crashed near Mirror Lake State Park in the Town of Dellona shortly before 10 pm local time, authorities said, according to the news outlet.

Rain was falling in the area as a thunderstorm moved through, according to the report.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Wednesday that the plane was flying at 24,000 feet (7,315 metres) when the pilot reported icing and requested permission to descend.

Air traffic control approved the request, after which the aircraft began a right descending turn that increased in rate until communications and flight-tracking data were lost, the NTSB said, according to AP.

Six people found dead at crash site

The Sauk County Sheriff's Department said it received multiple reports of a downed aircraft at around 9:30 pm on Tuesday. Five adults and one child aboard the plane were found dead, authorities said.

The aircraft had contacted a nearby air traffic control tower before the crash, police said. Investigators were reviewing the communications to establish the sequence of events leading up to the incident.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the NTSB are investigating the crash, including whether weather conditions contributed to the accident.

No damage reported on ground

Authorities said the crash did not damage any nearby structures or cause injuries to people on the ground, AP reported.

The identities of those killed had not been released at the time of the report.

Investigators are examining the aircraft's final communications, flight data and the weather conditions in the area to determine what caused the plane to crash.