Four people were killed in a small plane crash in Cleveland, Ohio after takeoff, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said Monday.
Law enforcement officials reported the crash happened shortly after the aircraft took off from Bishop Road and Curtiss Wright Parkway at the Northeast corner of the Cuyahoga County Airport. The incident occurred at about 10 p.m.
According to the officials, the plane was ablaze when they reached the scene. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board have launched a probe into the crash.
"We know it was a small, single-engine plane and that at some point it caught fire," Ohio State Highway Patrol Lieutenant Rudy Zupanc said, according to Reuters. "We are still in the investigative phase."
Zupanc also stated the plane's destination and the total number of people on board remain unclear.
Tyler Evans, a witness to the crash, said he was driving down Bishop Road when the incident happened.
"It took off, it stalled, went up hooked and then it went down and crashed over here," 9 WCPO Cincinnati reported him as saying.
Neighbors said that the plane sounded like it was having trouble before it crashed.
"We heard the propeller, like you could here that something was wrong with it," said Ruzanna Tovmasyan. "All of us were running towards the airplane trying to help but the flames got even worse, I just thank God that it didn't land on our house."
Another neighbor told his son to call 911.
"I probably got about halfway there (wreckage) - boom, the fuel tank went," the bystander, identified as Gerald, said. "I got up really as close as I can but it was just too hot, too involved, there was nothing I could do."
