Small plane crashes into Terre Haute, Ind., home

TERRE HAUTE , Ind., Aug. 26 (UPI) -- A private plane crashed into a home in Terre Haute Ind., injuring two people aboard.

The single-engine Cessna plane was attempting to land at Sky King Airport on Thursday evening and circled the runway several times before it descended. It struck a tree on Rosehill Avenue in residential North Terre Haute and then crashed nose-first into the home of Matt Fox.

Police said no one was at home at the time of the incident, except for a small dog who emerged unharmed. The two people aboard the plane were removed from the plane and airlifted to a local hospital, their injuries unreported.

Josh Craft of the Otter Creek Fire Department, which pulled the passengers from the plane, said "It obviously was a difficult extrication, not something we normally would train for, but we worked quickly and worked as a team and got both patients out of the aircraft and loaded into helicopters. Vigo County Sheriff Greg Ewing commented, "One of the main concerns initially when the fire department arrived was the fuselage and the fuel that is held in the wings leaking into the house. That's why you saw the fire department using foam to kind of blanket the area to prevent any type of fire because aircraft fuel is very flammable."

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident.