The twin-engine Cessna 421 crashed around 11:20 a.m., and the house burst into flames. The owner's nephew barely escaped the catastrophe, leaving just before the aircraft hit to visit his aunt.
"For now, it's a bit difficult to explain how I feel," said Oscar Nolasco, 52, who has lived in the home for nearly 20 years. "Everything is gone."
The house was about a mile from the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, where the plane has just taken off. The pilot, Cecil A. Murray, 80, of Tarmac, did not survive, said Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti. There were no passengers aboard the plane.
The smell of fuel hung in the air hours after the crash, and the shell of the aircraft was sandwiched between two walls of the beige house. The home's driveway was black, but its white mailbox was still standing.
When the plane began to fail, Rick Cunningham heard a "spitting and sputtering" while he was painting a house down the street. Then, he saw the plane coming in sideways, and it nose-dived into the ground, he said.
National Transportation Safety Board investigator Robert Gretz said several witnesses reported "possible engine trouble on takeoff and an engine on fire."
Gretz said officials expect to have a preliminary report of the investigation in about two weeks, but the investigation could be difficult because the blaze destroyed some evidence and the aircraft is buried beneath the rubble.
Cunningham, 52, ran over to the house and knocked the bedroom windows down to see if there was anyone inside, but after a few minutes he had to leave. "The heat was just too intense," he said.
The plane was headed to Fernandina Beach, just outside Jacksonville, where airport officials expected it to land around 1 p.m. The pilot, who had logged about 23,000 hours of flying since 1985, was traveling there to sell it, Lamberti said.
But after takeoff, something went wrong. Shortly after it got into the air, it reported trouble to the tower, and the tower cleared it to turn around and land, said Chaz Adams, an airport spokesman. It never made it.
"I said, 'Oh my God, that could have been my house.' It was that close," said Bill Slugg, who lives across the street.
"I was on the phone, the phone went dead and there was this loud bang and a lot of black smoke emanating from the area," said Dorothy O'Brien, 83, who lives nearby. "Black, black smoke for at least ten minutes."
Though the fire was quickly controlled, firefighters were trying isolate fuel in the debris, said Oakland Park Fire-Rescue Chief Donald Widing. A utility company also cut power in the area to about 1,645 customers because they were not able to get in to assess damage to power lines.
