Small plane crashes into Connecticut home, 3 people missing

EAST HAVEN, Conn. –  A small plane crashed near a Connecticut airport and three people are missing and feared dead, including two children inside a home that caught fire.

The multi-engine, propeller-driven plane struck the small homes in a working class neighborhood near Tweed New Haven Airport, and firefighters found two homes engulfed in flames when they arrived.

The missing victims include the one person on the plane and two children in one of the houses, ages 1 and 13, the Associated Press reported East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo said.

"We haven't recovered anybody at this point and we presume there is going to be a very bad outcome," East Haven Fire Chief Douglas Jackson said.

The Federal Aviation Administration says the Rockwell International Turbo Commander 690B aircraft flew out of Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and crashed as it approached Tweed New Haven at 11:25 a.m. Friday.

Neighbor David Esposito said he heard a loud noise and then a thump. "No engine noise, nothing," he said.

He also said he heard a woman screaming that her children were inside the burning home.  He running into the upstairs of the house, where the woman believed her children were, but they could not find them. They returned downstairs to search, but he dragged the woman out when the flames became too strong.

Frank Diglio, 55, told the Hartford Courant that he was driving nearby and pulled over when he saw people screaming and crying. Diglio said he and another man tried digging through the room to find the children, but were forced to leave after 10 minutes when the fire at the house became intense.

"The plane was burning slow and then it started really burning," he told the newspaper. "The fire engines arrived in like 10 minutes. They came real quick and they told us all to move. The house got really out of control."

Maturo offered sympathy to the family. "It's total devastation in the back of the home," he said.

 Tweed's airport manager, Lori Hoffman-Soares, said the pilot had been in communication with air traffic control and did not issue any distress calls.

"All we know is that it missed the approach and continued on. There were no distress calls as far as we know," she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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