On Sunday, a small place crash landed into a nature preserve in the woods north of the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. The four passengers on board perished when the plane crashed and burst into flames. Around 4:30 p.m. the twin-engine Piper Navajo declared an emergency right before it crashed, according to the spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, Kathleen Bergen. CTNOW reports that Division Chief Chantal Botting of Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue said, “Our crews made an aggressive attack on the fire, extinguished the fire within minutes…Unfortunately, it was discovered that there were four souls on board and all four perished.”

No one on the ground was injured, but the names of the deceased have not been released, pending notification of the relatives. Among those on the ground near the crash site was a young group of friends playing ultimate frisbee. Bobby Bemis, 24, of Fort Lauderdale recounted the scene to CTNOW saying that he and his friends were playing their game on an activity field at Calvary Chapel, at 2401 W. Cypress Creek Road, when they noticed a small plane bank sharply eastward. Then, the plane started into a sharp downward dive toward the ground. To everyone’s fears, there was a loud crash followed by a plume of thick, black smoke.

Elyssa Service, a flight attendant in the group playing Frisbee, said, “It was fully engulfed, the plane was mostly intact, the tail was still on.” The accident report from the National Transportation Safety Board could take up to a year to be released, but hopefully it will contain some answers as to the reason for this crash.