Two people were killed when a small plane crashed along the Texas 360 service road in Grand Prairie Monday afternoon.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the single-engine Wheeler Express CT took off at 2:45 Monday afternoon and crashed about 1 mile west of the Grand Prairie Municipal Airport five minutes later.
Grand Prairie Fire Chief Robert Fite said witnesses said the plane came down rapidly, hit a telephone pole and then struggled another 500 feet — hitting the concrete multiple times — before hitting a pickup truck traveling on the service road.
Fite said the person in the truck was slightly injured and was taken to the hospital as a precaution.
The plane caught fire after coming to rest in a grassy area near a Sonic drive-in restaurant, Fite said.
“The plane was in obvious distress coming down,” Fite said. “We do not know if this was an emergency landing or a catastrophic failure.”
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The Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office identified one of the victims Wednesday as 71-year-old Larry Ronald Vieregge of Grapevine. The second victim had not yet been identified.
The cause of the crash is not yet known. Fite said the plane originally left Denton earlier in the day, before landing in Grand Prairie.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.
