Two people are dead after a terrifying small plane crash turned a quiet Ohio neighborhood into a fireball Thursday afternoon, sending stunned families running for their lives as flames swallowed a home near an airport.
The fiery disaster happened around 3:45 p.m. in Akron, Ohio, just southwest of the Akron Fulton Airport, when a Piper PA-28 aircraft slammed directly into a house in the Coventry Crossing neighborhood, according to officials.
Authorities said the two people on board the plane were killed instantly in the crash.
Miraculously, a family inside the home — a husband, wife, and two children — escaped alive moments before the house became engulfed in flames.
“We heard this humongous, loud thud,” neighbor Jewell Ulrich recalled after the horrifying impact. “Instantly, all of us came running out. We saw that the airplane had hit the house. The fire was just instantly going.”
The explosion-like impact shook nearby homes as smoke billowed high into the sky and could reportedly be seen from downtown Akron.
Neighbors described scenes straight out of a disaster movie.
“That fire was instant,” Ulrich said. “It was so hot. And then you could see the tail of the airplane sitting right there. The fire was just blazing.”
Her husband, Steve, said the wreckage was scattered across the neighborhood.
“The tail was just hanging out of the garage,” he said, while another wing reportedly landed between two homes.
Next-door neighbor Michael Phillips said his family barely had time to react.
“The power flickered in our house,” Phillips explained. “The next thing we heard within five to eight seconds was a boom and then a big boom. We came outside, and the house was on fire.”
Fire crews rushed to the neighborhood and battled the blaze while police blocked off the area. Officials confirmed another nearby home was also damaged in the crash.
District Fire Chief Sierjie Lash praised the family inside the house for escaping unharmed.
“They were able to get out with no injuries, so we’re very fortunate that they are safe,” Lash said.
Investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are now trying to determine what caused the deadly crash.
The American Winds College of Aeronautics, a flight school based at Akron Fulton Airport, confirmed the aircraft had departed shortly before the crash.
“We pray for the pilot, anyone on board and their families,” the school said in a statement.
As investigators comb through the charred wreckage, shaken residents are still struggling to process how an ordinary afternoon turned into a deadly inferno in seconds.
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