Stringer / REUTERS

Investigators and firefighters work at the scene of a plane crash in Palm Coast, Fla., on Friday. Three people on the plane were killed and the homeowner escaped without major injuries, authorities said.

At least three people were killed when a small plane crashed into a house Friday afternoon while trying to land at a central Florida airport, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

The 1957 Beechcraft H35 Bonanza was heading from Fort Pierce to Knoxville, Tenn., when it began experiencing mechanical problems, FHP Lt. Justin Asbury said.

Deputies said initial reports said the pilot declared an emergency at about 2:10 p.m. after reporting the plane was severely shaking, NBC station WESH of Orlando reported.

Flagler County Airport Director Roy Sieger told the Dayton Beach News-Journal that according to flight controllers the pilot of the plane reported smoke in the cockpit at 2:18 p.m. and the crash occurred at 2:19. 

The Flagler County Sheriff's Office said the plane hit a Palm Coast home just east of the Flagler County Airport.

Robert Ferrigno, who lives down the street, said he heard the crash from his home.

"Planes go over here all the time, but this afternoon, I heard, 'putt, putt, putt,' and then I heard, 'boom,'" Ferrigno said. "I looked outside, and there were flames shooting up over the trees."

Ferrigno and another neighbor, Armando Gonzalez, ran down the street to the crash site.

The home's owner — identified by FHP as Susan Crockett — was already outside when they arrived, screaming that a plane had crashed into her house.

"The house was in flames, and there were explosions — boom, boom, boom — inside the house," Gonzalez said. He said the tail appeared to be sticking out the roof of the single-story ranch home.

Ferrigno added that the crash had thrown insulation everywhere, saying, "It looked like it was snowing."

Crockett was taken to a nearby hospital as a precaution, Asbury said. She was listed in stable condition.

Authorities didn't immediately identify the people on the plane.

NBC News staff contributed to this report from The Associated Press. 

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Four people died in the crash of small plane that disappeared after departing from a regional airport near Roanoke, Texas on Saturday.

A Texas Department of Safety helicopter located the downed Beechcraft Bonanza late Saturday night in Van Zandt County.

"The plane is completely destroyed," said Ronnie Daniell, Van Zandt Justice of the Peace. "It's just torn to pieces, pretty much, over a wide debris area."

The dead were aboard the aircraft, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Their names have not been released.

FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford said the Mississippi-bound aircraft took off Saturday morning from Northwest Regional Airport at about 9:40 a.m.

A search started after air traffic controllers lost radar and radio contact with the plane 25 miles southeast of Terrell in Kaufman County.

Read the original story at NBCDFW.com

A graphic from Flight Aware shows the plane had a smooth takeoff headed southeast. Then, over the Terrell airport, it suddenly started an erratic route and stayed in the air for three and a half hours before crashing.

Federal regulators were scheduled to arrive at the crash site Sunday afternoon to begin their investigation.

The tail number of the single-engine plane belongs to Palm-L Aviation LLC. The FAA said the plane was built in 1985.

This is the second fatal crash in two weeks involving a plane that departed the Northwest Regional Airport in Roanoke.

A pilot and flight instructor died September 23 shortly after takeoff. The cause of that crash is still under investigation.

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The four survivors of a plane crash in central Idaho can prove just how close they came to death on June 30, with a seven-minute video documenting their harrowing experience, including the bloody aftermath.

The video, which has gone viral online, was captured by two cameras, and posted weeks after the ordeal so the men's friends and family could see what happened. 

One passenger, Nathan Williams, 38, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he and his friends are "just four guys who are lucky to be alive." 

The dramatic footage shows the plane taking off from a dirt runway in the Bear Valley area, where the men had spent the day hiking in the wilderness. Williams said they were headed to McCall for dinner.

About 2 minutes and 40 seconds into the video, the plane begins to lower and then crashes into trees. As the shot becomes blocked by the wreckage, a man is heard asking, "Everybody OK?"

"Within five seconds we're on the ground, upside down, hanging from our seat belts," passenger Tol Gropp, the pilot's son, said.

He and another passenger, Alec Arhets, escaped with cuts and bruises. Williams suffered a concussion, while the pilot, Les Gropp, 70, had a broken jaw, broken ribs and a fractured cheekbone. 

NBC News

One passenger, Nathan Williams, 38, said he and his friends are "just four guys who are lucky to be alive."

He is expected to make a full recovery.

"You certainly feel like we were watched over that day," Tal Gropp said, adding that his father is credited with grounding the plane without loss of life.

Several minutes later, one of the men is shown retrieving the camera, which films the pilot lying on the ground with his head resting on a log and his face and arm covered in blood. His eye appears blackened and the wreckage of the Stinson 108-3 is in the background.

The men suspect the plane had a difficult time gaining altitude because of warming temperatures. They think it may have hit an air pocket that made it rapidly lose altitude, pushing it down into the trees.

"The first time you see it it's kind of surreal because it's full speed, you know, it's seven seconds, it's not very much time," Tal Gropp said. "Probably watched it a couple of hundred times." 

As of Friday morning, the video of the plane crash had more than 370,000 views and had been played more than 1.3 million times on the website LiveLeak, where it was shared two day ago. [Editor's note: The video contains graphic images some viewers might find disturbing.]

Williams told the AP he understands why people are intrigued, while Tal Gropp muses: "It's surreal that I was actually one of the people in the plane."

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Samantha Clemens / The Spectrum

Emergency officials respond to a fatal plane crash near the St. George Municipal Airport on Saturday.

Security video captured a small plane taking off from a southern Utah airport just before it crashed about 300 yards from the runway, killing all four men aboard, a federal investigator said Sunday.

Zoe Keliher of the National Transportation Safety Board said the video shows the single-engine Cessna 172 flying at a low level early Saturday morning at St. George Municipal Airport.

"The airplane continued down the runway and made a rapid ascent," Keli­her told the Salt Lake Tribune. "Shortly after that, you see a descent of a few flickers of light but not the plane."

She added that it's too early to say whether the airport's camera video will offer clues into the cause of the crash.

Marc Mortensen, assistant to the St. George city manager, said officials believe the four men aboard the plane were killed upon impact. The wreckage wasn't discovered until more than four hours later because the airport is not staffed at night, he added.

The victims were identified Sunday as Colby Hafen, 28, and Christopher Chapman, 20, both of Santa Clara; Tanner Holt, 23, of Washington City; and Alexander Metzger, 22, of St. George.

Keliher and Mortensen said they were unsure where the plane was headed at the time. Keliher said only one of the four men had a pilot's license, but neither she nor Mortensen would identify the plane's pilot.

Holt's friend, Paul Hogue, told the Deseret News that Holt was a trained pilot who had flown commercially.

"The future can be taken from you so quickly and they had so much for their future," Hogue said. "They had future families and future wives and kids."

According to Federal Aviation Administration records, the Cessna 172 was built in 1999 and owned by Diamond Flying LLC of St. George.

Keliher said a cursory check of the plane's maintenance records turned up no major problems. She and representatives of Cessna and the company that built its engine inspected the aircraft after it was moved Sunday to a nearby hangar, she said.

Trio rescued more than 15 hours after Idaho plane crash

It will take months for her agency to examine the plane and pilot, and issue a final report, she said. The NTSB will issue a preliminary report on the crash in five days.

"I'm now trying to get ahold of family members (of the four), and will finish the inspection of the aircraft Monday," Keliher said Sunday evening. "I hope to wrap up the on-scene investigation and leave Tuesday."

'Wonderful son'
According to the National Weather Service, there were no severe weather conditions at the airport during the early on Saturday.

The airport, which has been in operation at its current site for about 1 1/2 years, does not have a control tower. Pilots use an automated system to communicate with one another when landing or taking off.

Hafen's family issued a statement describing him as a "wonderful son, brother and uncle" who loved to travel and who served a Mormon church mission to Oregon. He worked in the insurance business with his father.

"The community is grieving together," Mortensen told the AP. "St. George is a tight-knit community, and some of the families involved have been in the area over 100 years. If you live in this area, you know someone who knows one of these men."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Kenny Hoagland / AP

This photo provided by the Owyhee County Sheriff's office shows the site where a small plane crashed in southwest Idaho on Sunday.

Updated at 1 a.m. ET: BOISE, Idaho -- Idaho National Guard rescuers plucked a California fireman, his wife and their adult daughter from a snow-covered mountainside Sunday afternoon, more than 15 hours after the trio survived a nighttime plane crash onto a steep, forested slope in a remote part of the state.

Authorities said the group was flying in a Cessna 172 from California to Mountain Home, Idaho, when the plane went down at about 9 p.m. MDT Saturday (11 p.m. ET). One of the three used a cellphone just after midnight to report that they had survived the crash but had suffered head and back injuries.

A medical helicopter was the first to spot the wreckage Sunday morning, but white-out conditions didn't allow for an immediate rescue, said Col. Tim Marsano of the Idaho National Guard.

Officials said ground rescuers traveling through 6-foot snow drifts and on 60-degree slopes reached the crash site first. They wrapped the family members in blankets and built a fire until a military helicopter could lift them out with a hoist.

"It was inhospitable for a landing," Marsano said. "The use of the helicopter was indispensable for this type of rescue operation."

Kenny Hoagland / AP

Ground rescuers traveled through 6-foot snow drifts to reach the crash site.

The three were flown one at a time to a landing area about a half-mile from War Eagle Mountain in southwest Idaho's Owyhee County.

The first person came out about noon and the last at about 2 p.m., and each was transferred to a medical helicopter and flown to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise where they were listed in stable condition.

It's unclear what caused the Cessna to go down. Photos taken by rescuers showed significant damage, including a broken front windshield.

Authorities identified the trio as Brian Brown of Wilton, Calif., his wife Jayann Brown and their 26-year-old daughter Heather, the Idaho Statesman reported.

'Surprisingly good condition'
Brian Brown is a captain at the Cosumnes Community Services District Fire Department in Elk Grove, Calif. He is also deputy chief of operation and training with the nearby volunteer Wilton Fire Protection District.

Owyhee County Sheriff Daryl Crandall told KTVB that the three relatives were "surprisingly good condition."

Wilton Fire Chief Tom Dark said the couple was flying with their youngest daughter to Mountain Home to visit their oldest daughter. He was relieved they were in stable condition.

"That was our first concern, how he and the family were doing," said Dark. "Knowing what a good pilot he is, something had to have happened."

Dark said it was probably an unusual experience for Brown, a firefighter for more than two decades, to be on the other end of a rescue.

"When the shoe is on the other foot it's kind of strange," he said.

The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A small airplane that crashed in southeast Kansas was carrying five people with connections to Oral Roberts University to a Christian youth rally in Iowa, a friend of three of the victims said Saturday. 

Those killed were identified Saturday as pilot Luke Sheets, 23, of Ephraim, Wis.; Austin Anderson, 27, of Ringwood, Okla.; GarrettCoble, 29, of Tulsa, Okla.; and Stephen Luth, 22, of Muscatine, Iowa. 

Hannah Luce, 22, of Garden Valley, Texas, was critically injured and admitted to the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan. Luce, a recent Oral Roberts graduate, is the daughter of Ron Luce, a trustee at the school and the founder of Teen Mania Ministries, which was sponsoring this weekend's Acquire the Fire rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa.  

The Kansas Highway Patrol said the twin engine Cessna 401 went down and caught fire around 5:30 p.m. pm Friday afternoon, nine miles west of Chanute, WIBW.com reported. The plane was traveling westbound when it landed in a field and skidding 200 feet before impacting a tree line, they added.

"The plane lost contact with air traffic control after getting permission to descend to a lower altitude," NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson said. "After that, there was no further communication." 

Brooke Ninowski, who recently graduated from Oral Roberts, said she had been friends with Anderson for about two years — he was her brother's roommate for a semester. She said they also had a few classes together.

Ninowski said she also knew Luth and Sheets through school, noting that Luth had dated one of her best friends. 

"They were guys who stuck to their morals and it showed through their character, and how they treated people," she said. "They thought of others first. I don't know if the reports are true about Austin, that he might have pulled Hannah out of the wreckage, but that wouldn't surprise me in any way." 

Sheets, Coble and Luth were killed at the scene, while Anderson died at a hospital in Wichita just before 5 a.m. Saturday, the Kansas Highway Patrol said. 

"They were going to an Acquire the Fire event run by Teen Mania Ministries," she said. "They're put on in various cities, Christian youth rallies where young people come together and learn about God." 

On Saturday, Oral Roberts President Mark Rutland issued a statement asking the university community to pray for Luce and remember those who were killed. He said Luth, Sheets and Anderson were recent graduates, and Coble was a former business instructor at the school. 

"The entire ORU community grieves for the families of the ORU graduates who lost their lives in this tragic plane accident," Rutland said. "May God grant them peace and they reflect on the precious lives that were so dear to their hearts. We continue to pray for those who are recovering." 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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