Pilot, resident dead when plane crashes into home in North Carolina
HOPE MILLS, North Carolina -- A single-engine plane crashed into a North Carolina home, killing the pilot and someone inside the house, authorities said.
Another person in the house was seriously hurt.
The civilian plane went down shortly before midnight Thursday in Hope Mills, according to the State Highway Patrol.
The pilot and one occupant of the house died on the scene, while the injured person was taken to Cape Fear Valley Medical Center with serious injuries.
Their identities weren't immediately released.
Aerial images showed a home surrounded by yellow police tape with nearly half its roof smashed in and debris scattered around the residential lot. The home is in the vicinity of U.S. Highway 301, less than 5 miles southwest of the Fayetteville Regional Airport.
Nearby are several businesses along with homes on other residential streets.
Jennifer Kelton, who lives about 50 yards away from the crash site, told sister station WTVD in Raleigh that her family was sitting down to dinner when they heard the plane pass by and then heard an explosion.
"I never heard anything that loud," she said. "It really did buzz over the roof."
Kelton said the residents were "very good people."
"It's so very, very unfortunate," she said. "And I'm just praying or their family."
Neighbors said that they heard the crash and went out to see what happened and saw the small aircraft had crashed into a home.
They said they heard the plane struggling and the engine sputtering.
"It was a double-wide modular home, and (the plane) came in and it took the whole back of the house out," eyewitness Kenny Oxendine said.
The cause of the crash is under investigation. Troopers and Cumberland County deputies were awaiting federal investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration as of early Friday.
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