13 Killed as Commuter Plane Crashes Into House

A commuter plane crashed into a house and burned during a heavy thunderstorm Wednesday, killing at least 13 people on the plane and injuring four more on the ground, authorities said.

The pilot and one passenger survived, hospital officials said.

There were conflicting reports about the death toll. The Federal Aviation Administration said 14 people on the plane and four on the ground were killed. But the airline said only 15 people had been on the flight, and the city fire chief said he could not confirm any deaths on the ground.

Robert Carlisle, who lives across an alley from the crash site, said he heard the plane moments before it went down. “It went dead. The engine sputtered. Then I saw flames,” he said.

Kathleen Bergen, an FAA spokeswoman in Atlanta, said the pilot had not reported problems before the crash.

Birmingham Police Sgt. Elvis Kennedy said: “It came across one house and hit a second house. The second house went into flames with the plane.”

Fire officials were searching the burned rubble for other victims.

L’Express Flight 508 from Mobile to Birmingham had 13 passengers and two crew members, said Carl Tackett, a L’Express vice president at the airline’s New Orleans headquarters. He said the plane was a Beechcraft C-99 twin-engine turboprop.

The plane was on final approach to the Birmingham airport when it crashed in a residential area of west Birmingham at 6:12 p.m., said FAA spokesman Fred Farrar in Washington.

Farrar said the crash killed 14 people on the plane and four on the ground. But Birmingham Fire Chief Buddy Wilks said late Wednesday there were not any confirmed dead on the ground.

The pilot was in critical condition at University Hospital in Birmingham, but his injuries were not life-threatening, said hospital spokesman Jim Bosarge. He identified the pilot as Francis Fernandez, 40, of Niceville, Fla.

A second survivor was passenger Mabry Rogers, 43, of Birmingham, who was listed in stable condition in Carraway Hospital in Birmingham with cuts and a broken leg.

Three people from one home at the crash site were hospitalized in satisfactory condition at Baptist Medical Center-Princeton, and an 81-year-old man, Leon Warren, who lived in another house was in fair condition with minor burns, hospital spokeswoman Susan Moore said.