George Pilkington, a witness to the crash, said he was the plane flying low, with its nose up and tail down, ejecting fuel – which struck him as unusual. The engine was straining, he said.
“It came over the top of my truck emptying fuel,” Pilkington said.
“That it didn’t cause more damage to the apartment buildings was a blessing,” he said.
The plane crashed in an area of apartment complexes and homes in a resort area a half mile from the waterfront, Pilkington said.
“When the initial impact happened, there was debris and pieces of the airplane flying everywhere,” hitting other buildings, Pilkington said. “There’s damage to different parts of the buildings all around it.”
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Zack Zapatero, another witness, told CNN he saw a few people walking out of one of the smoky, damaged buildings. Some of them had cuts and were coughing, he said.