Two people were killed Thursday afternoon when a small aircraft crashed into a residence in Akron’s 2200 block of Canterbury Circle, sending heavy black smoke over the neighborhood and forcing nearby homes to be evacuated. The crash happened around 3:45 p.m. and drew crews to the scene after residents reported seeing a plane go down into the house.
Sierjie Lash said dispatchers began getting calls that a plane was falling into a home, followed by reports that people heard explosions before crews arrived. When firefighters and other responders reached the block, they found heavy smoke coming from the house and confirmed that two residences had been evacuated. Nobody inside either home was injured.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol confirmed that the two people aboard the aircraft died in the crash. The plane was identified as a 1963 Piper Cherokee single-engine aircraft that had departed from Akron Fulton Airport before the crash. Multiple agencies, including the state patrol and the Federal Aviation Administration, were responding as investigators worked to determine what caused the aircraft to go down.
The crash added another grim chapter to a scene that unfolded in minutes and left little immediate clarity for neighbors watching smoke rise from the block. For now, investigators have confirmed the most important facts: the people aboard the plane did not survive, the homes were evacuated in time, and the cause of the Akron plane crash remains under investigation.
