LOCK HAVEN, Pa.—A small plane chartered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture crashed into a home Monday, killing three people aboard and narrowly missing a couple inside the house.
The Cessna 210 was on final approach when it went down west of Lock Haven’s William T. Piper Memorial Airport at about 1 p.m. Monday and struck the house, a utility pole and three vehicles, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters said.
Three Forest Service workers on board were killed, but there were no reports of injuries on the ground, he said.
Donald Probst, 81, said he and his 75-year-old wife, Shu Yaun, were getting ready to leave the house when he heard the crash. Probst, who spent 27 years in the Air Force, said he knew immediately what had happened.
“I heard a big bang, and looked out the window and saw pieces lying all over the street,” Probst told The Associated Press. “It tore off the whole front porch and kind of messed up my car. I couldn’t open the front door; the whole roof is down in front of it.”
“If that would have happened three or four minutes later, we would have been out the door headed for the car,” he said.
The plane was had been chartered by the USDA, Peters said. Officials did not yet know where it was coming from, its final destination or whether more than three people were aboard, he said.
The registered owner was Sterling Airways Inc. of Hornell, N.Y.
Probst said he was thankful no one on the ground was hurt and that can easily get a new porch and car, but he was grieved to hear that three people died in the crash.
“If the man would have had another 100 feet, he would have gotten down safely,” he said.
Calls to the Lock Haven fire administrator and the Clinton County coroner were not immediately returned.
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to an Associated Press error, based on incorrect FAA
information,
the owner of a plane carrying two U.S. Forest Service workers and
the pilot was incorrectly reported. The plane was owned by Sterling Airways Inc. of Hornell,
N.Y.
