Authorities confirm at least two people died Tuesday when a chartered jet crashed into a small apartment house, in Akron, Ohio. Another house nearby caught fire.
No one on the ground is reported injured.
The plane went down as it approached a general aviation airport.
Tim Rudell of member station WKSU reports for NPR's Newscast desk that, unofficially, nine people are believed dead:
"The Hawker H25's owner told the Akron Beacon Journal the flight was a charter from Dayton, Ohio, with seven passengers and a crew of two, and no one survived.
"Due to fire damage at the scene investigators haven't confirmed the numbers. Medical Examiner Lisa Kohler said, 'We are going to bring a specialist in with us tomorrow. We are going to be coordinating with the FAA and the NTSB; but we are going to wait until morning so that we can get the best information possible about the nature of the accident and the individuals involved.'"
The Beacon Journal also reports the plane had been chartered by a Florida company called Execuflight, and owner/operator is Augusto Lewkowicz:
"It was a perfectly well-maintained aircraft with no squawks," Lewkowicz said, adding that there was no chatter from the pilots to indicate anything was out of the ordinary."
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