Plane Crashes Into Ohio House, Killing Pilot

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Mar 20, 2000 - 06:40 AM

Plane Crashes Into Ohio House, Killing Pilot

The Associated Press

AKRON, Ohio (AP) - A small plane that seemed to struggle to gain altitude after takeoff crashed into a house and exploded, killing the pilot.

No one was injured in the house, which caught fire and was destroyed Sunday morning, said Al Bragg, spokesman for the Akron Fire Department. The pilot was burned so severely that dental records will be needed to identify him.

"It was scary," said Phil Russell, a neighbor who saw the crash from his kitchen window.

Russell watched the single-engine, four-seat Beechcraft A-23 Musketeer fly toward the rooftops of the second-story homes in the neighborhood and crash about 200 feet away.

Russell said the plane still was in the air when it clipped a garage of one house and then crashed into the house next to it.

Bystanders at Akron-Fulton Municipal Airport told firefighters that the plane struggled to gain altitude after takeoff shortly before 8 a.m. and that the engine sounded odd, Bragg said.

Bragg said Cindy Miller was taking a shower upstairs when she heard a loud boom. She woke up her 13-year-old daughter, Julie, went downstairs and saw the living room was on fire.

Bragg said the Millers' $160,000 home was destroyed, along with contents of $70,000. The first home hit by the plane had $20,000 in damage, primarily to the garage and its contents, he said.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGIC6BH026C.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), March 20, 2000


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