A National Transportation Safety Board investigator walks near the wreckage Friday MESSAGE BOARD: Air safety

September 3, 1999
Web posted at: 12:28 p.m. EDT (1628 GMT)

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (CNN) -- A small plane attempting an emergency landing crashed into a warehouse early Friday in West Palm Beach, Florida, killing all eight on board, safety officials said.

The twin-engine Beechcraft B90 turbo-prop, whose passengers were all employees of a hair restoration company, was on a flight from Pontiac, Michigan, to Boca Raton, Florida, when it reported engine trouble.

The plane tried to make a emergency landing 25 miles north of Boca Raton at the Palm Beach International airport, but went down about a half-mile (0.8 km) short of the runway, said George Prellezo, a National Transportation Safety Board spokesman in Miami.

All eight on board the airplane died in the crash, Prellezo said. They worked for the Hair Institute of America, a Boca Raton company that performs hair transplants. The airplane was operated by the company and was not an air ambulance flight as earlier reported, Prellezo said.

The plane was on course for the airport but clipped the corner of a pool and spa company in the corner of a strip shopping mall, shearing off a wheel and part of the wheel housing, Palm Beach County Sheriff's spokesman Paul Miller said.

"The plane then clipped some electric wires and flipped over on its roof when it crashed into a wooded area behind the strip shopping center," Miller said.

The plane burst into flames on impact. Police and phone company employees working in the area saw the 3:25 a.m. crash but could not reach the victims because of the intense flames, Miller said.

"The people inside have been burned beyond recognition," he said. Some bodies, badly charred, had been removed by late morning. No one on the ground was injured.

The plane was returning to Florida after a trip to Michigan, Miller said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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