LOS ANGELES, March 22 – A single-engine plane, reported to be carrying children on a ski vacation to the Rocky Mountains, crashed on approach to an airport in western Montana on Sunday, killing 17 people, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

A photograph taken by an eyewitness moments after the crash and broadcast on CNN showed a fireball blazing through a grove of trees near a cemetery a short distance from the Bert Mooney Airport in Butte, Montana, where the plane went down.