Investigators probe Ohio plane crash that killed two on training flight

Investigators are working backward through pilot experience, aircraft condition, flight-path data and weather after a training flight in northeast Ohio ended with a Piper PA-28-180 Cherokee spiraling out of the sky and into a house. Aaron McCarter of the National Transportation Safety Board said the plane completed standard maneuvers and made two landing attempts before “something upset the aircraft” on the second approach, sending it down from about 1,000 feet.

The white and blue Cherokee took off from Akron Fulton Airport, and flight-tracking information put its departure at about 2:03 p.m. before it later crashed in the Coventry Crossing development near Firestone Country Club. Witnesses first reported the accident from the country club area, and investigators have said 911 calls, doorbell camera footage and the aircraft itself will all be part of the reconstruction. The NTSB is leading the inquiry with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

McCarter said the plane struck a road, hit a house on Canterbury Circle and burst into flames. The two people aboard were a certified flight instructor and the aircraft’s pilot-owner. The Summit County medical examiner’s office said the victims had not been publicly identified immediately, pending notification of family members. Some local reports described the aircraft as a 1963 Piper Cherokee.

The home was badly damaged, but the family inside escaped. McCarter said a father and two children were in the house when the plane hit, and all got out unharmed. One resident, Laudato, said he was in the basement when the internet went out, then heard a loud bang and felt the house shake before getting his two children and dog to safety. Christi Gould, a neighbor, said the children had been napping upstairs when the father got everyone out. The Red Cross was assisting the four family members affected, and two nearby homes were evacuated because of the fire.

The crash has raised the broader safety question that follows many small-aircraft training accidents: how to keep flight instruction, often routine and tightly scripted, away from residential neighborhoods when something goes wrong. The FAA says loss of control in flight is one of the leading causes of fatal general aviation accidents, even as its 2025 safety fact sheet says 2024 had the lowest fatal accident rate since tracking began in 2009. For investigators in Akron, the next step is to determine why this training flight suddenly became unrecoverable.