One person is dead after a small plane crashed in the backyard of a Suffolk County, Long Island home on Tuesday.
The single-engine plane had taken off from Republic Airport in East Farmingdale when it crashed in East Patchogue, authorities told NBC New York. The pilot was able to fly the plane between two homes before it landed in the yard on Camille Lane, barely missing the house where a young mother was inside with her newborn.
The pilot was pronounced dead at the scene. Those on the ground, including the mother and baby, were unharmed.
Witnesses say they were frightened by the 9 a.m. crash that was followed by an explosion and fire.
"It thought it was World War III," 16-year-old Hailley O'Neill told Fox8.com. Her backyard is directly behind the crash site.
"I screamed. I was calling my mom saying, 'Oh my God, mom what happened?' " she told the station.
Other residents said the plane wiped out several trees as it went down.
"All of a sudden I heard what sounded like a plane coming down," neighbor Chad Widman told NBC New York. "It was really, really loud and then there was a pause and then there was a loud boom and then another loud boom."
Authorities evacuated houses within a two-block radius of the fire. The house where the plane crashed suffered damage from the blaze but officials were able to quickly put it out, NBC New York reported.
The pilot was headed for MacArthur Airport in Islip. It is not immediately known why the Lancair Columbia plane crashed.
The crash occurred four days after Richard Rockefeller, a great grandson of Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller, was killed after the plane he was flying crashed near a Westchester County airport. Richard Rockefeller was returning home to Maine after celebrating his father's 99th birthday.
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