A preliminary report from U.S. authorities into a plane crash in Tennessee that killed five Canadians says one witness heard “sputtering” and “popping” sounds from the plane’s engine as it flew overhead before crashing alongside a highway west of downtown Nashville.
Friday’s report from the National Transportation Safety Board’s report describes how pilot Victor Dotsenko of King Township, Ont., told a Nashville International Airport controller his engine had shut down and he didn’t know where he was going to land.
The controller cleared Dotsenko to land the plane carrying his wife and three children on a runway, but the pilot, in his last message to the controller, said he was too far away to make it.
Video recordings showed the airplane descended over a residential neighbourhood and passed over the interstate highway before crashing and bursting into flames.
The report says multiple witnesses reported hearing what sounded like “engine issues” from the plane as it passed overhead before the crash on March 4.
The single-engine plane was supposed to land at the John C Tune Airport in Nashville on the third leg of its trip from Brampton, Ont.
— With files from The Associated Press