More than a dozen planes took off after a fatal Cessna crash, but it wasn't reported until the following afternoon.

The vintage private plane that crashed Saturday afternoon at the Williston Municipal Airport, killing all four people aboard, wasn't noticed by more than 20 pilots who flew out of the same airport later that day and was only reported to emergency responders 21 hours later.

Investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board were at the scene early Monday. The identities of those who died have not yet been confirmed. The 1948 Cessna 170 was registered to Nathan Enders.

Enders was an air traffic controller in Georgia. "He worked at a radar control facility in Peachtree City," according to a spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration's website.

The airport hosted a fly-in barbecue event from 12:30 to 3 p.m. on Saturday.

The plane had refueled in Georgia before arriving at the Williston airport Saturday at 2:48 p.m., according to Clay Connolly, Williston's deputy chief of police. He said the plane attempted to take off at 3:10 p.m. and crashed about 150 feet before the tree line at the north end of the taxiway.

The weather at the time was fair, with winds steady at 8 mph, gusting to 14 mph, from the east, according to a nearby weather station.

Between 20 and 30 aircraft took off from the airport after the crash Saturday, but it was a jet pilot leaving the airport Sunday afternoon who first alerted authorities. Williston police were notified at 1:12 p.m. Sunday.

"For all that traffic, no one thought to call us," Connolly said.

While it is possible that pilots looking toward the landing strip or climbing on takeoff might not have seen the bright, crumpled wreckage, the Cessna was equipped with an emergency locator transmitter that continued to send a radio signal that should have been noticed by pilots within 2 or 3 miles, even if its antenna was snapped off, Connolly said.

"Everything went wrong at once," he said. "This is really a huge complacency issue."

The airport has a full-time manager and two part-time employees, but it wasn't clear if any of them were on duty Saturday. Airport manager Wayne Middleton was meeting with city officials Monday afternoon and wasn't immediately available to comment.

Connolly said it would be at least a week before a preliminary report was available from the NTSB.

Enders is a former flight instructor, living in Williamson, Georgia, according to his Facebook page.