UNIONTOWN, Ohio (AP) - A small airplane hit a flagpole and crashed on the front lawn of a vacant Ohio home, killing the pilot, authorities said Friday.
Michael Connell, 45, of Akron, died in the crash, said Ohio State Highway Patrol spokesman Lt. Tony Bradshaw. The crash sparked a fire that damaged the house's garage, but no one was inside the Uniontown home at the time, Bradshaw said.
"The plane was burned pretty extensively," he said.
No one on the ground was injured. The plane did not have any passengers.
The empty house was in foreclosure, Greentown Fire Department Capt. Lorin Geiser told the Canton Repository.
Airport spokeswoman Kristie VanAuken said Connell was attempting to land at Akron-Canton Airport, which is about two miles from the house, before the crash. The plane, a Piper Saratoga, went down in a residential area surrounded by farmland.
Early reports indicate the plane took off from Pennsylvania, Bradshaw said.
"There probably would have been some conversation between the pilot and the air traffic control tower, but I have no idea what that conversation may have involved," VanAuken said.
"You could tell it was very close and it kept getting closer and closer," Christina Pastore-Bucher, who lives on the street, told the Canton Repository. "It buzzed right over the house, and you heard a crash - it was an impact. It had instantly burst into flames."
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash.
Uniontown is about 10 miles southeast of Akron.
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