Small plane crashes in Brooklyn Park, setting house aflame

A single-engine turboprop airplane crashed into a Brooklyn Park neighborhood and set a house ablaze shortly after noon Saturday near the end of its flight from Des Moines en route to Anoka County-Blaine Airport.

No one on the plane survived, but their names were not released and it was unclear how many were on board, said Brooklyn Park spokeswoman Risikat Adesaogun.

She said residents of the home destroyed in the crash were unhurt.

“We got out alive,” said Kenneth Tobacman, the owner of the destroyed house. “We lost a cat. We saved our dog.”

The plane reportedly crashed about 12:20 p.m. near the intersection of Kyle Avenue N., Noble Parkway and W. River Road.

According to the Federal Aviation Agency and flight records, the Socata TBM 700 left Des Moines International Airport at 11:12 a.m. on its 280-mile flight to Blaine. It was scheduled to land between 12:11 p.m. and 12:28 p.m. The plane is registered to DGW Enterprises of Edina.

The National Transportation Safety Board was to lead the investigation, assisted by the FAA.

At the time of the crash, Tobacman said, his wife was walking their dog and he was alone in the house eating lunch.

“There was a very loud boom. A piece of the ceiling fell through,” he said. “I had no idea what the hell was going on. The lights went out.”

Within moments, flames were everywhere. He said he grabbed his phone, but with smoke filling the house, he didn’t have time to put on shoes. He fled in his stocking feet.

“By the time I got to the front door, I couldn’t see the front door,” Tobacman said.

It took firefighters from Brooklyn Park, West Metro, Plymouth, Fridley and Osseo an hour to get the fire under control.

Tobacman said the house, where he has lived since 2009, is “a total wreck. There’s nothing left.” He and his wife were numb, he said, with their sole remaining possessions the clothes they’re wearing and a dog leash. But he said friends, family members and the Red Cross were reaching out to help.

Adesaogun said the home was destroyed and nearby properties damaged. The extent of the damage was unclear.

Nearby resident Henry Tita said he was standing outside getting ready to go to his job as a building engineer when he heard what sounded like a plane circling overhead.

He said it was too cloudy to see the plane, but it sounded alarmingly low.

“Within five seconds, I heard a very loud sound,” Tita said. “I told my in-laws that plane has crashed.”

He said he rushed to the crash site and found the house engulfed in flames and thick black smoke.

“We couldn’t see the plane,” he said. On a short video he took of the scene, he can be overheard saying, “So sad … very, very tragic.”

“When we came up there, I was just full of tears because I was thinking the people were in the house,” he said afterward.

Jesse Boyd, who lives a few doors down from the crash site, said he was about 10 minutes away in north Minneapolis when he got an alert on his phone from his ADT security service that something had happened at his home. As he drove back, he was passed by emergency vehicles. He followed them as they turned onto his block.

At that point, Boyd said he thought, “I’m really worried now.”

He said smoke was pouring from the ruins of Tobacman’s home. Another neighbor told him the plane appeared to have directly hit the house.

“He said the house was totally leveled. It was like a bull’s-eye,” he said. “The neighbor said the whole block shook. He said the whole plane was in the house.”

Boyd said little remained of the plane.

“Where is this plane at?” he said. “If you look in there, I don’t see the plane.”

Paul Walsh of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.