SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — A private jet apparently experiencing mechanical trouble crashed Sunday in a northern Indiana neighborhood, resulting in injuries and striking three homes, authorities and witnesses said.
There was no immediate word of any deaths.
The Beechcraft Premier I twin-jet had left Tulsa, Okla.'s Riverside Airport and crashed near South Bend Regional Airport, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Roland Herwig in Oklahoma City said.
"There was an indication of a mechanical problem," Herwig said.
Injuries resulted from the crash, Herwig said, but he did not know if they occurred on the aircraft or on the ground. He did not know how many people were aboard the jet.
Some people were taken to local hospitals, Assistant South Bend Fire Chief John Corthier said, but he did not know how many.
The neighborhood southwest of the airport was evacuated because of concerns about jeft fule. Buses were transporting up to 200 people to a nearby shelter, Red Cross volunteer Jackie Lincoln said.
Stan Klaybor, who lives across the street from the crash scene, said the jet clipped the top of one house, heavily damaged a second, and came to rest against a third. Neighbors did not know if a woman living in the most heavily damaged house was home at the time, and a young boy in the third house hurt his forehead but did not appear to be seriously injured, Klaybor said.
His wife, Mary Jane, regularly watches planes approach the airport.
"I was looking out my picture window. The plane's coming, and I go, 'Wait a minute,' and then, boom," she said.
"This one was coming straight at my house. I went, 'Huh?' and then there was a big crash, and all the insulation went flying," she said.
