2 dead after small plane crashes into Akron house, residents evacuated

A small plane crashed into a house in Akron’s Coventry Crossing development, killing two people and sending emergency crews to a residential block where neighbors had already reported a plane going down.

Akron police and fire officials said the crash happened at about 3:45 p.m. Thursday in the 2200 block of Canterbury Circle on the city’s south side. The two victims were found dead inside the aircraft. Their identities had not been released. The Ohio State Highway Patrol identified the plane as a 1963 Piper Cherokee.

Fire officials said the first calls came from residents who saw the aircraft going down into the home. More reports followed about explosions and heavy smoke. When crews arrived, they found fire and smoke coming from the house. Two homes were evacuated, and no residents were reported injured. The damaged home sustained significant destruction, and investigators were assessing whether it remained structurally safe.

The plane had departed from Akron Fulton Airport, about four miles east of the crash site, placing the accident squarely in one of the city’s populated neighborhoods. The Federal Aviation Administration said the National Transportation Safety Board would lead the investigation, while Akron fire investigators worked with the Ohio State Fire Marshal on the house’s structural integrity. Authorities have not said yet what caused the plane to leave its flight path and strike the residence.

The crash revived memories of another deadly Akron aviation disaster in November 2015, when a Hawker H25 business jet crashed into an apartment building near Akron Fulton International Airport and killed all nine people aboard. In that case, the National Transportation Safety Board later concluded the pilot improperly set the flaps and failed to maintain proper speed, and it cited inadequate training, maintenance problems at Execuflight and FAA oversight failures. Thursday’s crash again put the city’s central concern in sharp focus: when aircraft go down in dense neighborhoods, the first question is not only what happened in the air, but whether people on the ground can be kept safe.