3 killed after small plane bound for Montgomery County crashes near Bowie neighborhood

Three people aboard a small plane were killed after the aircraft crashed overnight in a wooded area near a residential neighborhood in Bowie, prompting a large-scale search that lasted nearly four hours before first responders located the wreckage, Maryland State Police said.

The single-engine Piper Cherokee, believed to be a training flight, was traveling from Ocean City, New Jersey, to a Montgomery County airport when it went down shortly before midnight Saturday near Routes 50 and 301. Authorities said the pilot and two passengers were pronounced dead at the scene.

At 11:30 p.m. Saturday night two passengers and a pilot flew through the night skies over Maryland.

The plane, believed to be a training flight and belonging to a local flight school, crashed in a small wooded area near a residential area and playground off of Scarlett Oak Court in Bowie, said Elena Russo, a spokeswoman for the Maryland State Police.

Police have not yet released the identities of those who perished in the crash.

“It was an absolute tragic incident,” Russo said. “It could have been even worst because of the proximity to a town home community in Bowie.”

As the plane tumbled in a downward spiral through a thicket of trees, authorities remained unaware to the crash. It wasn’t until an emergency alert from an iPhone that came in around 11:53 p.m. that they were alerted to a plane down near Routes 50 and 301, according to Russo.

Dozens of first responders set out to find the plane, some on the ground and others peering down at the woods from an aerial view. Authorities located the plane in the woods at about 3:45 a.m. Debris from the crash lie scattered over 100 feet of the ground.

A man, who asked not to be named and is a flight instructor from Australia, said he and his friends heard about the crash in the middle of the night through others in the local aviation community and felt compelled to help first responders. The group found the plane’s path on Flight Radar 24 and followed it to its last visible location near the woods.

The group met at a nearby high school where the man said police asked them not to go into the area because they were waiting for canines to arrive to help with the search.

The man, feeling as though it was possible there might be a survivor in need of help and suffering, said he and his friends went looking in the woods anyway.

As they peered through the dark forrest with flashlights they saw something white hanging on a tree. Upon closer examination, the man said he realized it was the plane’s wing.

Moments later, he saw part of the tail. Fearful that someone might need help he said he decided to get closer. That’s when the man said he looked inside what was left of the plane and saw a bloodied arm so white he knew it was lifeless.

He couldn’t bring himself to look at the victims’ faces, so he said he retreated and immediately tried to summon help, yelling and throwing flashlight signals into the air for police to find them before hopping over a nearby fence and flagging authorities down.

It remains unclear what caused the crash and if there were any communications signaling trouble from the pilot. Russo did not know the name of the flight school that owned the plane and could not say if it was typical that a training flight would be in the sky that late in the night.

The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the crash.

This story has been updated.