Three men killed in plane crash near Maryland townhomes, investigators say

Three adult men were killed when a single-engine Piper Cherokee went down in Bowie, Maryland, sending debris across a wooded area just steps from townhomes and a playground. The wreckage was not found until about 3:45 a.m. Sunday, hours after Prince George’s County Public Safety Communications received an iPhone crash alert at about 11:53 p.m.

Officials said the plane crashed late Saturday night, around 11:30 p.m., in a wooded area off Scarlett Oak Court and Scarlet Oak Terrace, near a residential neighborhood in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. No one on the ground was injured, even though debris was scattered across roughly 100 feet behind a fence near the townhome community.

The aircraft had taken off from Ocean City, New Jersey, and was headed to Montgomery County Air Park in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Police believe the plane may have belonged to a local flight school in Montgomery County and may have been on a training flight. The men aboard were adults, and their identities were being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

The crash set off a ground and aerial search involving the Prince George’s County Fire Department, Maryland State Police aviation units, Bowie City Police, Anne Arundel County Police and Aviation, and the Prince George’s County Police Department. Maryland State Police forensic analysts also responded to process the scene for evidence as investigators worked through the wooded crash site.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are leading the investigation, which will focus on the aircraft’s flight path, the weather, the pilot history, and the condition of the Piper PA-28 itself. A licensed pilot said the Cherokee is often used in flight training because it is relatively simple to fly and has fixed landing gear, and that conditions appeared favorable for flying that night.

The crash has renewed scrutiny of small-aircraft safety in the region after a deadly midair collision over the Potomac River earlier in 2025. For investigators, the immediate questions now are not just why the plane went down, but how a training flight, if that is what it was, ended in a wooded strip so close to homes and public space.