A small plane crashed soon after taking off from a private airstrip in Oregon timber country Saturday and killed all four people on board, authorities said. 

The small plane went down around 3:10 p.m. in a rural area west of Eugene, according to the Lane County Sheriff's Office.

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Citing witness reports, authorities said the plane began to lose altitude shortly after take-off and hit a large tree that Lane County District No. 1 Fire Chief Terry Ney said tore off a wing of the aircraft. 

The single-engine Cessna landed upside down, Ney said. Fire authorities pronounced the four people inside the aircraft dead at the scene. 

Details about the victims and their names were being held pending notification of next of kin. 

The National Transportation Safety Board was en route Saturday to investigate the crash while the sheriff's office helped secure the scene. 

Lane County records show the airstrip where the plane took off is owned by Conrad Magnuson and known as Crow-Mag Airport, according to a report by Mark Baker in the Eugene Register-Guard.

The newspaper said Magnuson declined to be interviewed when approached at his home.

 “It’s going to take heavy tools to get them out of there,” Lane County District No. 1 Fire Chief Terry Ney said of the victims. The small plane “for whatever reason didn’t clear the woods,” Ney said.

Nearby resident Debbie Parker told the newspaper she had just gotten home Saturday afternoon and was unloading groceries when she heard the plane overhead.

“Didn’t sound real strong,” Parker said, sitting on her deck. “And then I heard it crash.”

Some people associated with the nearby Oregon Country Fair property came by Saturday and thought the crash victims might be associated with the fair, she added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Possible military aircraft debris, along with material that may be bone fragments, has been discovered in the Knik Glacier area, north-east of Anchorage, according to officials.

Alaska Army National Guardsmen on board a UH-60 Blackhawk flying a routine training mission discovered the debris at about 1 p.m. local time Sunday, and conducted a brief aerial inspection before returning to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.

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Capt. Tania Bryan, director of public affairs for the Alaskan Command, said the crash was believed to be that of a vintage aircraft and "not recent."

Read the story at Channel 2/KTUU.com

She says details about the crash are being withheld pending possible notifications of next of kin.

A recovery effort for the wreckage is being considered by the U.S. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, which conducts search, recovery and laboratory efforts to locate lost service members.

The Federal Aviation Administration has placed a temporary flight restriction on the area, and aviators are being asked to avoid the vicinity as personnel investigate the site.

At the request of Alaska military officials, the Hawaii-based U.S. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) is trying to plan a recovery mission at the Knik Glacier site, a spokeswoman told Reuters.

JPAC, which focuses on search and recovery missions for missing U.S. service members, hopes to schedule an Alaska trip and line up necessary expertise to work on the glacier, said Captain Jamie Dobson, a spokeswoman for the command.

"We believe that there's a reason for JPAC to be involved," she said.

Reuters contributed to this report. Channel 2/KTUU.com is an affiliate of NBC News.

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A father, mother and their four children died when a small plane crashed in a remote rural area of Florida Thursday afternoon, officials said.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office said the Pilatus PC-12/47 aircraft went down in the Tiger Creek Swamp near Lake Wales around 12:30 p.m. The area is southeast of Lakeland in central Florida.

The victims were listed as the aircraft's pilot, Ronald Bramlage, 45, Rebecca Bramlage, 43, and their four children. Officials have located the bodies of three of the children and were still searching for the fourth, the Sheriff's Office said in a statement.. 

The aircraft was owned by Roadside Ventures LLC of Junction City, Kan. Ronald Bramlage was the owner of Roadside Ventures, authorities said.

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The plane took off from the Treasure Cay airport in the Abaco Islands in the northern Bahamas and made a stop at the St. Lucie County International Airport in Fort Pierce, Fla., to clear customs. The plane then took off for Junction City at 12:05 p.m. with two adults and four children on board, authorities said. 

Officials said the plane began to break apart over southeast Polk County and crashed. 

The crash area is in a remote area and the Polk County Sheriff's Office used helicopters to fly in law enforcement and medical personnel. 

Parts of the aircraft were found as far as two miles away from the crash site. Officials say that the parts separated before the crash and that the plane was traveling at 26,000 feet when it began experiencing trouble.  

The victims were listed as the aircraft's pilot, Ronald Bramlage, 45, Rebecca Bramlage, 43, and their four children. Officials have located the bodies of three of the children and are still searching for the fourth. 

The cause of the crash has not been determined.

The plane had been owned by Casey Anthony's former attorney, Todd Macoluso, and is the same one that was used the night she was released from jail after her trial, the The Palm Beach Post reported. Macoluso may have sold the plane earlier this year, the Post said.

Ronald Bramlage was the grandson of Fred Bramlage, the namesake of the Bramlage Coliseum at Kansas State University, NBC station KSNW of Wichita, Kan., reported. Rebecca Bramlage was president of the Junction City Board of Education. Both were graduates of Kansas State.

University President Dr. Kirk Schulz and Athletics Director John Currie released a statement:

"We are shocked and saddened by the tragic news of the deaths of Ron and Becky Bramlage and their children today. The Bramlage family holds a special place in the history of Kansas State University and K-State Athletics, and Ron and Becky have been loyal supporters and great fans of K-State. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Bramlage family during this difficult time." 

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COOPER CITY, Fla. -- A small plane made an emergency landing on a busy Florida street on Saturday afternoon, officials said.

A 1965 Mooney landed on Sheridan Street near Douglas Road around noon after an engine problem, according to the Pembroke Pines Police Department. The aircraft was making its way to the North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines, officials said.

The pilot and the passengers were not injured but the plane's wings were clipped when it ran into some trees, police said.

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See photo, read the original report at NBCMiami.com

"It's a good day when an aircraft can land on a roadway anywhere, but especially on Sheridan Street, in the weather and the traffic that was out here and end up with no injuries," said Tom Gallagher, public information officer for Pembroke Pines Fire Rescue.

Authorities said the four-seater aircraft was coming down the eastbound lanes that were clear at the time. Once traffic began moving on the street, though, the pilot moved the plane to the median where it struck some trees, officials said.

"I was shopping at Publix and I saw the plane coming down and thought, whoah, that's freaky," said resident Steve Romney.

The plane was coming from Georgia, according to police. The last-minute landing shut down the eastbound lanes for hours as authorities worked to clear out the plane.

"It could have been catastrophic. The pilot used a lot of skill, he was evaluating the air space and his landing area on his way down," Gallagher said.

The incident remains under investigation.

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The Coast Guard has suspended its search for a pilot who may have been unconscious when the private plane he was flying crashed into the Gulf of Mexico and sank.

Crews spent about six hours trying to locate Dr. Peter Hertzak, a 65-year-old physician from suburban New Orleans, after his twin-propeller Cessna 421C went down Thursday about 120 miles west of Tampa, Fla.

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The plane was headed from Slidell, La., to Sarasota, Fla., when it started flying around in circles for hours.

Air Force jets were dispatched to look into the plane after the pilot failed to respond to numerous communication attempts by controllers.

The jet crews were unable to see the pilot because of fog and icing that obscured the plane's windows, Coast Guard officials said. The icing is seen as a possible sign that the aircraft lost cabin pressure and the pilot was rendered unconscious.

The plane landed right-side up on the ocean surface and later sank.

Previous story: Downed private plane sinks in Gulf of Mexico

There was no sign that the pilot, believed to be the only person aboard, survived the crash. The search has been called off pending further developments, the Coast Guard said Friday.

"This is one of those unfortunate cases where even though we stood ready to respond, we were unable to effect a rescue," Lane Carter, command duty officer for the Coast Guard’s 8th District command center, said in a news release.

Hertzak was a cosmetic surgeon and OB-GYN from New Orleans and was believed to have been flying to Florida for pleasure, according to media reports.

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An 80-year-old woman with little experience flying planes was forced to make an emergency landing Monday when her husband, a certified pilot, slumped over the controls of his twin-engine Cessna in the skies of northeastern Wisconsin on Monday.

"He developed a medical emergency," Door County, Wis., Sheriff Terry Vogel said of John Collins, 81. "He died as a result."

His wife, Helen Collins, remained calm despite not knowing how to fly a Cessna, and called the sheriff's dispatch center for help.

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"She was circling for an hour-and-a-half when the tanks were actually registering no fuel," Helen and John Collins' son, Richard, 55, told msnbc.com. "Usually you have 45 minutes. She had to be running on fumes, and I mean fumes."

The Collins, who live in Sturgeon Bay, Wis., were flying back from a weekend fishing trip to Florida. After fueling up in Georgia and calling Richard, who lives next door to them in Sturgeon Bay, they continued their flight.

Six miles south of Door County's Cherryland Airport, though, trouble struck: John had a heart attack mid-flight and fell unconscious, said Richard Collins. Richard and another brother, who knows how to fly, heard the news, and raced to airport's dispatch center just after 5 p.m.

With his father passed out at the controls and his mother weak from two open-heart surgeries of her own, Richard began to worry about the fate of both of his parents.

"She can hardly walk up steps," Richard said.

As authorities down on the ground debated whether it was best to try to direct Helen to Cherryland Airport or to the larger Green Bay Airport for what would undoubtedly be a rough landing, a local pilot flew up to be by Helen's side, figuring it would be easier to radio in instructions on how to land if he could gauge her speed in the air.

The situation got more dire when shortly after 6 p.m. Helen radioed in more bad news: The Cessna's right engine had lost power because it was out fuel.

"She said, 'Look, I gotta land, I'm outta fuel,'" Richard said.

Somehow, in what Richard describes as "a miracle," Helen managed to touch down safely at Cherryland.

"She didn't even know how to drop the landing gear," Richard said. "I can't even tell my mom how to run a computer!"

Amazingly, Helen didn't suffer any major injuries, Richard said. While the plane landed nose-first, and Helen got some bruises in the process, she is expected to be OK.

"She landed it. It was absolutely incredible. She had an elevated heartbeat, and they were trying to bring down that scuff mark on top of her head and the bruise on top of her forehead. She will probably have two black eyes, but she's up and alert," he said.

'We prayed over him, and we said our goodbyes'
The relief the family felt when they saw Helen was alive was matched by their grief when they realized their father didn't survive his heart attack.

"The EMTs extracted my dad. We prayed next to dad," Richard said. "She held his hand, and the priest said some prayers. We prayed over him, and we said our goodbyes. It was a really trying time."

John Collins had a passion for flying and owned multiple airplanes, Richard said, adding that he's proud of what his mom did.

"This twin [Cessna] is one of a few that won't go into a spin when you lose an engine. She brought it down and she did a wonderful job."

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Two San Diego Navy doctors en route to a medical training course in Texas ended up saving a man's life before their plane even landed.

Lt. Gregory Capra and Lt. Art Ambrosio were residents in the Naval Medical Center in San Diego. They boarded a plane to San Antonio on Feb. 8 for a cadaver dissection course, according to a press release from the Center.

Two hours into the flight, a man at the front of the plane went into cardiac arrest.

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Despite two failed CPR attempts, and an unsuccessful administering of an automated external defibrillator (AED), the man was still not responding. A nurse on the plane tried to inject an IV line with epinephrine, but the man's veins were inaccessible.

Finally, the two Navy doctors tried an unconventional trick. The man's wife revealed her husband had a history of airway obstruction." Capra thrusted the man's jaw upward and opened his airway, while Ambrosio inserted a plastic hook-shaped device into his throat.

Read the original story on NBCSanDiego.com

The man began to squeeze Capra's hand and became responsive. Once the plane made an emergency landing, medics took over care. The man's condition at this time is unknown.

“We were in shock that it had actually happened, and that we were in the middle of it all,” said Capra in the release. “We were like, ‘Did that just happen to us?’ It was very surreal.”

Ambrosia added that at the Navy hospital, they were trained to work under pressure, which helped them to respond so quickly.

"There are different things they teach us here like poise under pressure, no wasted movements, knowing what you mean and meaning what you say … all of that helped us respond to this situation quickly and efficiently.”

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Updated at 1:50 p.m. ET: A plane crashed into a mountain in Washington state overnight, killing two men and a woman, authorities said Wednesday.

The single-engine Cessna 172 slammed into a wooded area on Little Si in North Bend, about 30 miles east of Seattle, King County sheriff's spokeswoman Cindi West told The Associated Press.

Susan Chapin of the sheriff's office told breakingnews.com that residents and officers in North Bend reported hearing the sound of a sputtering engine and an explosion that "woke everyone in the town up."

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A helicopter crew spotted the wreckage using night-vision goggles. The bodies of three people were found inside the four-seat aircraft.

The identities of the victims were not immediately released.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash.

Little Si, with an elevation of 1,576 feet, is a companion mountain named after its taller neighbor, 4,167-foot Mount Si.

David Wylie of breakingnews.com and The Associated Press contributred to this story.

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Updated at 6:27 p.m. ET: Friends say Lauren Scruggs is now resting in intensive care with her family after further surgery Monday.

Original post: A Dallas-area model and editor lost her left hand and fractured her skull after she walked into the propeller of a small airplane following a flight to view Christmas lights over the weekend.

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Lauren Scruggs, 23, of Plano was in serious condition Monday at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas after the incident Saturday night. Scruggs, a fashion model, founded and edits LoLo Magazine.

Scruggs landed at Aero Country Airport in the McKinney area, about 30 miles from Dallas, about 9:30 p.m. Saturday after viewing North Texas Christmas lights from a small private airplane, The Dallas Morning News reported. The pilot wasn't hurt.

A family friend, Janeé Harrell, said Scruggs was struck on the left side of her body.

"Following multiple surgeries, Lauren has received facial and shoulder reconstruction, as well as the loss of her hand," Harrell said in a statement on a website set up by Scruggs' family and friends. 

Scruggs is responding to voice commands and is able to move her legs and arms, according to an update posted on the site Monday morning.

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Three people were killed but two others survived when a small medical plane crashed Monday night in a suburb of Chicago, narrowly missing a resident's house.

The plane was carrying an 80-year-old patient and his wife when it went down between 10:45 p.m. and 11 p.m. CT in Riverwoods, Ill., according to the Lake County Sheriff’s office. The patient, John Bialek, and his wife, Ilomae, 75, were among those killed. Authorities had not yet released the name of the third victim.

 

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The Chicago Tribune said the pilot had told air traffic controllers of a fuel problem shortly before the accident, citing FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory. The flight originated from Florida.

The plane landed mere feet from a ranch house belonging to Riverwoods resident and msnbc.com regional sales director John McGuire, who lives about 25 miles northwest of Chicago.

"It's heavily, heavily wooded here," said McGuire, who didn't realize a plane had crashed until after emergency crews arrived. "It sounded like when a bad thunderstorm comes through. It sounded like 80 or 90 mile an hour winds; I could hear all this stuff hitting the roof."

McGuire said he was watching Monday night football when the plane came down about 25 feet from his house.

"The football game was three hours, kind of a blow-out, and I had some laundry to do, so I took it to the other end of my house," McGuire said. "I finished putting my clothes away, and a minute or two later, I hear trucks, ambulances and rescue staff coming up my driveway."

Not able to see the plane through the dense trees, McGuire asked the emergency personnel what was going on.

"They're like, 'There's a plane in your backyard,' and all I could think was 'I hope it's a single engine, not a commercial flight,'" McGuire said.

The twin-engine aircraft, owned by Trans North Aviation, was transporting the patient, his wife, two pilots and a flight paramedic to the Chicago Executive Airport in Wheeling, Ill., five miles from the crash site, reported The Chicago Tribune.

Survivors stable
McGuire said his wife, who was reading in the opposite end of the house at the time of the crash, said she heard a thud when it happened.

"It's kind of surreal," McGuire said. "The first few hours, we just caught up and thought, this is bizarre. Now that I look back on it, I think I was really lucky. That was a couple tons of metal that came flying out of the sky within 30 feet of where I was sitting."

McGuire watched as some of the victims were loaded into ambulances.

"I saw them take people away that were clearly alive on stretchers," he said. "And then they put a tarp on the plane wreckage. I think they were waiting for the coroner to arrive."

The plane sheared trees as it plunged to the ground Monday night. Its mangled tail was still hanging in a tree Tuesday as NTSB investigated the wreckage, McGuire told msnbc.com. His house had no visible damage.

The two crash survivors were in stable condition on Tuesday. Nobody on the ground was injured.

Ron Schaberg, president of Trans North Aviation, said he had been in contact with the son of the patient who died. 

"I'm just very sorry," he said, telling The Tribune it was the first fatal crash at his company in more than 30 years.