Monday, June 29, 2015
Associated Press
PLAINVILLE, Mass.
A small plane crashed into a house Sunday evening, killing three people on board, police said, but residents managed to flee as fire engulfed the home.
The Beechcraft BE36 aircraft crashed into the house about 5:45 p.m. Sunday, said Jim Peters of the Federal Aviation Administration. It had taken off from Lancaster Airport in Pennsylvania and was headed to Norwood Memorial Airport in Massachusetts.
Fire crews extinguished the blaze nearly three hours after the crash in Plainville, about 30 miles southwest of Boston, said Massachusetts State Police spokesman Dave Procopio. He said the residents escaped, and preliminary reports show three people in the plane were killed.
The plane wound up behind the two-story colonial, where a section of the tail and a charred wing rested on a hillside in the yard.
Neighbors reported hearing something amiss as the plane flew over their homes.
Mike Brown told The Sun Chronicle that he was outside barbecuing when he heard the plane, looked up and saw it start to bank. He said the engine sounded like it was sputtering and then heard a crash and saw smoke.
Alaska crash
In a separate plane crash, a team of aviation investigators has been working in a remote, mountainous site in southeast Alaska to determine what caused the crash of a sightseeing plane that killed eight cruise ship passengers and the aircraft’s pilot.
The DeHavilland DHC-3 Otter turboprop – also known as a floatplane – went down Thursday. The excursion was sold through the cruise company Holland America.
Seven investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board made it to the crash site Saturday and spent Sunday scouring for clues to the disaster, said Clint Johnson, head of the board’s Alaska office.