Several people die when a small plane crashes into a mobile home park in Florida

A single-engine plane crashed into a waterfront mobile home park in Clearwater, Florida, on Thursday evening, killing several people and damaging four homes, officials said.

The plane crashed directly into one home, Clearwater Fire Chief Scott Ehlers said at a news conference, adding that there were “several fatalities, both from the plane and in the mobile home.”

The crash caused part of the park, Bayside Waters, to go up in flames and damaged three other mobile homes, although no one in them was injured, Chief Ehlers said.

Videos posted online showed an orange glow and a wall of thick smoke pouring over homes. Frances Yont, who lives across the street, told 10Tampa Baya CBS affiliate, that she could feel the heat of the fire as she ran from her home in Clearwater, about 20 miles west of Tampa.

“Everything was popping like propane tanks,” she said. “There was nothing we could do,” she said, adding that “it was horrible.”

Fire officials were working with the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration on an investigation, Chief Ehlers said.

Firefighters received the first call at 7:08 p.m. and crews “quickly extinguished” the fire after arriving at the park around 7:15 p.m., Chief Ehlers said.

At about the same time his department got the call, the chief, St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport, said about three miles away, had sent its own fire engines to an 'airplane in emergency'.

The pilot had radioed a “mayday” to the airport, he added.

“The aircraft disappeared from radar approximately three miles north of the runway, which is located here at this location,” the crash site chief said.