Horrifying video captured a plane crashing into a building in Hawaii during a training flight — with a pilot telling the control tower: “We’re out of control here.”
The two people on board were killed when the plane crashed into a building near Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu Tuesday afternoon, Hawaii News Now reported.
Video shot from a highway showed the plane flying low, before dipping out of view and then exploding in a ball of flames.
Audio revealed the control tower desperately trying to guide the pilot, saying: “OK Kamaka 689, if you can land, if you can level it off, that’s fine. Any runway, any place you can do.”
But the final words from the pilot were: “We’re out of control here.”
Officials have not publicly identified the victims. However, sources close to the family told Hawaii News Now one of the victims was pilot-in-training Hiram Defries.
The plane crashed into a vacant, state-owned building slated for demolition, which Honolulu Fire Department Chief Sheldon Hao called a “best-case scenario.”
Officials also praised the pilot for avoiding populated areas.
“This could have been much, much worse, but the situation was limited to the two that was flying the plane… from what we understand the pilot made a lot of adjustments to minimize what they hit,” said the director of the Hawaii Department of Transportation Ed Sniffen.
Numerous witnesses heard a loud banging sound and saw the large dark plumes of smoke emitting from the crash.
“I was sitting at my desk and all of a sudden, I saw a small plane fly past my office window, which is on the seventh floor,” Nancy Timco told the outlet. “I went, ‘Oh, he’s really, really low,’ and he started banking and going back towards the airport, and then I heard a loud bang.”
Another witness told the outlet: “I was working and all of a sudden had a loud, one big boom, and I looked out and there was just some freaking clouds of smoke and my coworkers told me a plane crashed right next to our building.”
The National Transportation Safety Board has opened an investigation into the crash.
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