2 killed as plane crashes into home in Bedford

BEDFORD – Indiana State Police said a pilot who crashed a plane into a house near a southern Indiana airport Monday, killing himself and his 8-year-old daughter, may have hit the home deliberately.\nFindings from the preliminary crash investigation “lead us to believe that this was an intentional act,” Indiana State Police spokesman 1st Sgt. Dave Bursten said. Authorities will not know “absolutely” until the National Transportation Safety Board completes its investigation, which could take up to a year, Bursten said.\nThe crash killed Eric Johnson, 47, of Connersville, Ind., and his daughter Emily Johnson, Bursten said. The plane crashed into the residence of one of Johnson’s in-laws, Vivian Pace, he said.\nThe crash happened around 11 a.m. near a runway for the Virgil I. Grissom Municipal Airport in Bedford, from which the plane had been released, state police Cpl. Eric Dunn said.\nWitnesses said the plane appeared to be trying to land during clear, sunny conditions when it veered 90 degrees and went out of sight just outside the city, about 20 miles south of Bloomington, The Times-Mail newspaper reported on its Web site.\nNo injuries were reported on the ground, and no fire broke out even though the impact left the plane’s front half lodged inside the house, scattering siding and other debris across the yard.\nPace said she was in her living room when the plane struck the side of the one-story home along a rural two-lane road. \n“Everything fell off the walls,” she told the newspaper.\nShe said she tried to call 911, but her phone line was out. She was on her way to a neighbor’s home when a firefighter arrived.\n“Something was wrong with (the plane), because it made a horrible noise,” she said.\nDunn said the crews were working several hours after the crash on how to remove the plane without causing additional damage to it or the house.\nElizabeth Isham Cory, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said she did not know where the plane’s flight had originated.\n“It is very possible they could have been flying by visual flight rules, so the pilot would not have been required to file a flight plan,” she told The Associated Press.