3 killed after small plane crashes into Minnesota home

HERMANTOWN, Minn. — Three Minnesota residents were killed late Saturday when a small plane they were flying crashed into a home south of Duluth International Airport, authorities said.

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According to officials in Hermantown, one woman from St. Paul and two men from Burnsville, all in their early 30s, died when their Cessna 172 airplane crashed into a home and yard, The Duluth News Tribune reported.

The two people in the house were not injured in the crash, which occurred just before midnight CDT, according to the newspaper.

According to KQDS-TV, the airplane hit the second floor of the house before landing in the backyard of the property. Power was cut off to homeowners in the neighborhood, the television station reported.

According to Hermantown Communications Director Joe Wicklund, the Hermantown Police Department was notified by the control tower at Duluth International Airport that a small airplane had left the radar and was believed to have crashed, the News Tribune reported. The control tower advised the last location on radar was 1 to 1.5 miles south of the airport.

A neighbor who requested anonymity told KQDS that she “heard a loud boom.”

“It wasn’t like a typical crash noise, it was more of an empty sound,” the woman told the television station. “We initially thought maybe a boom of thunder. Then everything went dark with the power out. It was eerily quiet for a minute or so before the emergency vehicles started flying down Arrowhead (Road) and they just kept coming.

“We were confused by the sound initially. Once we heard the sirens we knew it had to have been something like a crash, but never thought a plane.”

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash, WCCO-TV reported.

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