6 killed when small plane crashes into Maryland house

The bodies of Marie Gemmell and her sons, Cole, 3, and Devon, an infant, were found in the second-floor bathroom of one of the houses struck by the plane, said Pete Piringer, the public information officer for Montgomery County Fire and Rescue, CNN reports. One of the people killed on the plane was Michael Rosenberg, CEO and founder of a North Carolina clinical development company called Health Decisions, according to a statement from the company. The flight originated in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, close to the company headquarters in Durham. The crash occurred about 10:44 a.m. Monday as the twin-engine Embraer EMB-500/Phenom 100 made an instrument approach to Montgomery County Airport, Robert Sumwalt of the National Transportation Safety Board said at the press conference near the wreckage. The plane went down about a mile from the airport, hitting three houses in all. The airport is about 25 miles northwest of Washington. Witness Fred Pedreira, 67, told CNN affiliate WJLA the plane appeared to be out of control when it crashed. "This guy, when I saw him, for a fast jet with the wheels down, I said, 'I think he's coming in too low,'" said Pedreira, who lives near the crash scene. "Then he was 90 degrees -- sideways -- and then he went belly-up into the house and it was a ball of fire. It was terrible." In describing the crash site, Sumwalt said, "The main part of fuselage is rested up against the second house, with the tail of the airplane actually at the front door of that house, and then finally it appears that one of the wings was catapulted over into the third house where the majority of the fire damage occurred. So the aircraft wreckage itself is really in two main areas, but it damaged three houses." Montgomery County Police Chief Chris Manger said Gemmell's husband and 5-year-old child were not home at the time.

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