A single-engine plane crashed into a waterfront mobile home park in Clearwater, Florida, Thursday night after the pilot reported an engine failure, killing several people, damaging four homes and setting the area on fire, officials said. Announced.
Clearwater Fire Chief Scott Ehlers said at a news conference that the plane directly struck a home, resulting in “several deaths in the aircraft and in the mobile home.”
The accident left part of the Bayside Waters mobile home park in flames. Ehlers said three other homes were damaged, but no one inside was injured.
The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that the plane that crashed around 7 p.m. was a Beechcraft Bonanza V35, and the number of people on board was unknown as of early Friday morning.
Video posted online showed a wall of orange flames and thick smoke rising over the house.
Ehlers said the fire department received the first call at 7:08 p.m. and “quickly extinguished” the fire after crews arrived at the park around 7:15 p.m.
At about the same time the department was alerted, St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport, about three miles away, dispatched its own fire engine to “the aircraft in emergency,” the chief said.
The pilot reportedly reported “mayday'' to the airport by radio.
“The aircraft is about three miles north of the runway, right here, right here,” the chief said at the crash site, where it went off radar.
The FAA said the National Transportation Safety Board will handle the investigation.
