September 11, 1995
Web posted at: 1:15 a.m. EDT
KING AND QUEEN COUNTY, Virginia (CNN) -- Flames roared from a a residential Virginia area Sunday night after a small airplane carrying eleven people crashed into a house. All aboard the plane died in the crash, which also killed a man on the ground.
Vincent Harris was on his back porch when the plane plowed into his home. A young son was playing with a neighbor in the yard and was not injured; Harris' wife and daughter were not home at the time.
The plane's 10 passengers were civilian parachutists on a recreational flight operated by a local company called Peninsula SkyDiving, based at the West Point, Virginia, airport. The twin-engine Beechcraft BE 65 aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from the airport about 6.45 p.m. EDT.
Harris' brother, Michael, saw the crash. "I could see the plane come down, kind of rolling from side to side, then all of a sudden it swooped down and just crashed right into the house," Michael Harris said.
Firefighters arriving to battle the flames were at first
unaware that a plane had crashed. But when they circled the
house, they found the wreckage.
John Holliman's live report - 272k AIFF sound
The accident site was in Eastern Virginia, mid-way between West Point and Shacklefords. The two small towns sit about 40 miles east of Richmond. The weather at the time of the accident was clear and was apparently not a factor in the crash.
Officials have not released the identities of the plane's passengers. Reports indicate that three of the skydiving club members were from the Hampton Roads area, while other members of the club were from areas in Maryland and eastern Virginia.
The pilot, whose name has not been released, was reportedly a former military pilot based in Richmond.
Investigators from the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board converged on the scene, along with state and local police. According to FAA public relations officer Arlene Salac, an NTSB investigation usually takes 12 months to issue a report.
NTSB official Bob Francis explained that that the bodies would be removed Monday morning as investigators began trying to discover the cause of the crash (247k AIFF sound). Witnesses said the right engine of the aircraft had stopped before the tragedy, and investigators said that engine is the largest piece of wreckage remaining intact behind the house.
Some experienced skydivers who had planned to be on board the plane when it took off Sunday night said they gave up their positions to make room for several students who had never done a skydive before. Now those people are shaking their heads in amazement, saying they are glad they're still alive, but they're so sorry for what happened in their intimate skydiving club of about 60 people.
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