Six dead after private jet crashes into house in Maryland

 
Plane crash: six people have died after the private jet crashed into a Maryland home (Picture: EPA)
Alexandra Rucki9 December 2014

Six people have died after a private jet crashed into a house in a Maryland suburb.

All three people on board the plane died in the crash, including a mother and her two children inside the house in Gaithersburg.

The crash, which took place yesterday at 10.45am local time, sparked a fire and destroyed two homes.

Maryland crash: emergency services at the scene (Picture: EPA)

Witnesses said they saw the plane circling with the wheels down and looked as if it was struggling for control, before hearing an explosion as it hit the ground.

Authorities said the plane was registered to Michael Rosenberg, a professor at University of North Carolina and CEO of a clinical research company.

He was quickly confirmed dead at the scene, alongside two passengers.

Marie Gemmell and her two sons, three-year-old Cole and one-month-old Devon, were later found dead and identified, police said.

Aftermath: the remains of the home after a plane crashed into it (Picture: Reuters)

Her husband and a school-age daughter were not at home at the time.

The Embraer SA twin-engine Phenom 100 departed from an airport on the university campus in Chapel Hill at 9.30am, it was reported.

Investigators, who were expected to be on the scene for up to seven days, will examine the experience and training of the pilot, weather factors, engine condition and interview the aircraft controller who handled the attempted landing.

Smouldering: clouds of smoke seen after a small plane crashed in to a home and damaged others in Gaithersburg, Maryland (Picture: Reuters)

Mr Rosenberg had previously crashed a plane destined for the same airport in 2010, according to records.

Robert Sumwalt, speaking on behalf of the National Transportation Safety Board, said: “Our mission is to find out what happened and why it happened so it will never happen again.”

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