NINE PEOPLE WERE killed when the private plane they were travelling on crashed into a house in the US state of Ohio.
Seven of them were employees of the same Florida real estate investment company, on a trip through the American Midwest to view property for potential shopping centres.
The crash took place yesterday afternoon in the city of Akron, two miles from the small airport where the plane was supposed to land.
The two pilots, along with two executives and five employees at Pebb Enterprises, were killed.
The 10-seat Hawker H25 business jet clipped electrical wires and crashed into the building, sparking a fire that destroyed the apartments, Ohio State Highway Patrol Lieutenant Bill Haymaker said.
Nobody was home at any of the apartments, and there were no other injuries.
A man who lived in the unit that plane crashed into said he wasn’t home because he’d gone to the store to buy Hot Pockets, a brand of microwavable turnovers.
Jason Bartley told the Akron Beacon Journal that he feels lucky but also in shock over the crash. The 38-year-old factory worker said he was coming home when he saw the flames.
Investigators are trying to determine what caused the crash, which shook furniture in homes several streets away and left behind fiery debris.
It could take days to recover and identify the victims, said Lt. Bill Haymaker with the Ohio State Highway Patrol.
“It’s going to be extensive,” he said.
Witnesses, including Carrie Willis, who lives several blocks away, said they heard explosions when the plane hit.
I heard a big bang, and my couch shook twice.
Roberta Porter, who lives one street away from the site, said she was driving home when she saw the plane crash and burst into flames.
This plane just dropped out of the sky, veered and crashed into the apartment building.
The chartered plane left Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Monday and stopped in Minnesota, Illinois, and St. Louis before arriving in Cincinnati, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware.
The plane departed from Cincinnati on Tuesday morning and stopped in Dayton before crashing on its approach to Akron Fulton International just before 3 pm.
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