A small plane crashed into a home in Minnesota over the weekend, killing all three people onboard but not injuring anyone at the house, according to state officials.
The Hermantown Police Department said a plane crashed into the second floor of a local home on Saturday night before falling into the back yard of the property. Two people at the home weren’t hurt, according to the police department.
Those aboard who were killed all came from the Twin Cities area, police said. Officers identified them as Alyssa Schmidt, 32; her brother, Matthew Schmidt, 31; and Tyler Fretland, 32.
Fretland was the plane’s pilot, and the Schmidt siblings were passengers, according to police.
It remains unclear what caused the plane to crash into the home. The Federal Aviation Administration was notified of the wreck, which caused power outages in the area. And the National Transportation Safety Board said it had sent inspectors to the crash site in Hermantown, a suburb west of Duluth.
In an interview with Minnesota Public Radio, Jason Hoffman described what he saw when the plane crashed into his home while he and his wife were in bed.
“We couldn’t hardly see each other through all the insulation dust,” Hoffman said. “I was able to grab a flashlight next to the bed and the first thing I saw was an airplane wheel sitting at the end of our bed.
“That’s when we looked out and noticed the entire back half of our house was gone.”
Hoffman said he was relieved that he, his wife and their cat were physically unharmed, but he was devastated about the three people killed in the crash.
Images show a hole left in the roof of the home and debris scattered in the yard the morning after the crash.
