On the almost cloudless Thursday afternoon, seven miles from the Monroe County Airport, the pilot of the single-engine plane reported a low fuel indicator.
The airport didn’t hear from the pilot again. In the aftermath of the crash, investigators determined the plane went down sometime shortly before 1 p.m.
As first responders arrived, Indiana State Police officials confirmed at least two fatalities and later determined there were no survivors.
Residents who live on North Oard Road near the crash site tried to make sense of the explosive sound and the black smoke.
Tearing through a shed behind a residence in a nearby wooded area, the charred remains of the plane were ?scattered.
Bruce Payton, airport director at Monroe County Airport, and others responded to the call — an “alert 3.”
Although Federal Aviation Administration Aviation Specialist Steve Burnham couldn’t say whether the plane caught flames in the air or on the ground, fire destroyed most of the aircraft and burned the passengers’ bodies beyond recognition, Monroe County Coroner Nicole Meyer said.
The individuals were later identified as both males, Meyer said. To identify them further, officials will conduct DNA tests and compare them with dental records.
The plane, which was believed to be en route to the airport, went down in a heavily wooded area on private property off of Oard Road.
The plane was cleared for landing at the Monroe County Airport, according to the Indiana State Police. By 12:58 p.m., Public Investigations Officer Joe Watts said 15 firefighters responded to the emergency call.
Before officials can investigate further and determine whether or not there were other people aboard, they will have to move the remaining pieces of the aircraft.
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At the scene of the wreckage, a bright orange hose snakes from an Ellettsville fire truck.
It winds down the slippery hill behind the house near the crash site, into the woods and through the wreckage.
The nozzle, thrown halfheartedly over a charred tree branch, rests next to a piece of the plane’s wing.
Tania Daffron, an Ellettsville firefighter on the scene, said when she arrived there was “a column of black smoke, going straight up (to the sky).”
She arrived with the Ellettsville Fire Department, directly behind Van Buren Township Fire Department.
The men’s bodies lay out at the crash site, just behind a thick fallen tree and next to a chunk of wreckage that Watts guesses might have once been a seat.
To the left, the exhaust pipe of the plane’s engine stuck straight up, parallel to a blackened branch.
The pieces of the metal that remained looked as if they’d bend as easily as construction paper.
“I heard the boom,” said Wanda Bennett, a neighbor from two doors down. “I looked up, and I just saw the big black smoke rolling in.”
Bennett’s house is tidy on the outside. A ?decorative heart reading “Bless this home” hangs on the front door.
Wanda’s husband James was mowing the front lawn when the plane fell. Looking up from the perfect, straight lines in the grass, he watched as smoke billowed from the woods.
They were both outside when the plane crashed, but Wanda was the one who heard the boom.
“I never even seen the plane,” James said.
“And you’re used to seeing planes go over you,” the Bennett’s son, David, said.
“But not going down over there,” James interrupts him, nodding toward the crash site.
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Daffron, never leaving her post, leans against a fire engine.
“I’m here for the ?duration,” she said.
Around 4 p.m., she said, the last of the small fires were being put out at the site. The “initial knockdown,” Ellettsville Fire Department Chief Mike Cornman said, took 12 to 15 minutes.
Directly behind the Ellettsville fire truck is a tub of water — 1,500 gallons worth — filled to the brim.
Another firefighter sits on its edge, his brow furrowed and eyes squinted toward the scene at the bottom of the hill.
Daffron said the tub is filled by another vehicle directly behind it, which has made four trips already. The tanker alone holds 1,400 gallons of water.
As of late Thursday afternoon, officials had not yet determined the cause of the crash.
The ongoing investigation could take anywhere from weeks to months, Meyer said.
