HOPE MILLS — Investigators with the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board continue working to determine what caused a small twin-engine plane to crash Thursday night into a home near Hope Mills, killing two people and injuring another.
The plane went down about 10:34 p.m., which is when the control tower at Fayetteville Regional Airport called the county’s 911 emergency dispatch. The aircraft struck the bedroom end of a double-wide modular home at 4821 Pasadena Ave., a little less than 3 miles southwest of the airport.
“We’re still sorting that out a little bit, but we were told they were on an approach to runway 4,” said Robert Gretz, a senior air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board.
The Pasadena Avenue residence, which is off Sanders Street, not far from U.S. 301, is within the flight path of planes using Fayetteville Regional Airport.
The pilot and a person inside the home died at the scene, while another person inside the home was hospitalized with serious injuries, the reported.
The identities of the people involved in the crash have not been released.
On its website, the Federal Aviation Administration says a Beechcraft E55 model aircraft crashed Thursday near Fayetteville. The fixed wing, multi-engine plane was built in 1979, according to the FAA.
Industrial Power Inc., which is in the 700 block of Whitfield Street, is the registered owner of the plane, according to the FAA website. A spokeswoman at the company declined to comment Friday morning.
Preliminary FAA findings indicate that the plane had landed at the Fayetteville airport, Gretz said, and had just taken off and was coming around for another landing.
“He did not report any kind of fuel problem,” Gretz said. “He reported some kind of control problems.”
The cause of the crash remains under investigation. But Gretz, who is based in the Office of Aviation Safety Eastern Division in New Jersey, said it appeared to have been a control issue. Gretz talked with reporters during a brief news conference near the home.
