Having set off from Dayton, the Hawker twin-engine, 10-passenger plane was approaching Akron Fulton worldwide Airport when something went wrong, the State Highway Patrol said. Haymaker said it clipped utility wires on the way down and crashed into the building, which was destroyed by a subsequent fire.
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OSHP Lt. Bill Haymaker says authorities have been in touch with the owner of the building, who confirmed that no one was home at the time of the crash. She said her sister was traveling with company executives and they were searching for real estate development sites to purchase.
Then there is the struggle for those in Akron whose lives have been turned upside down by the crash. Nobody was home at any of the apartments, and there were no other injuries.
The crash caused at least 1,500 customers to lose power and Ohio Edison officials said all but 100 customers were restored by 4:30 p.m. Then, from Dayton, it traveled again going to Akron, but instead of landing on the right runway, at the Dayton global Airport, it hit the residential area.
One witness, Mike Patton, says it seemed like the plane was trying to pull up before the crash.
“You could hear the engines just running, and when he hit the throttle – just before he hit it – it made a really loud roar, and he just couldn’t recover”, Patton said.
“It’s not a scattered scene but it’s heavily burned”, Haymaker said.
Carrie Willis, who lives several blocks away, said: “I heard a big bang, and my couch shook twice”.
The moment a plane slammed into a row of houses, killing nine people, was captured by a teenager posing for a Snapchat video.
The small plane struck the two-story complex at about 3pm in Akron and burst into flames. She was driving home Tuesday afternoon when she saw the plane crash into the building and burst into flames.
Leon Henderson, a fire lieutenant with the Akron Fire Department, told TIME the pilot and co-pilot “may have died” in the accident.
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CBS affiliate WOIO reports that it happened just before 3 p.m. Construction workers who witnessed the crash ran to the scene in an effort to help, Fox 8 reported.
