Crews are investigating in north Phoenix where a single-engine plane went down on a roadway after departing from Deer Valley Airport.
The incident occurred after noon on Tuesday near 19th Avenue and Deer Valley Road, just west of the airport.
The two people on board were taken to the hospital in critical condition.
Air15 video showed the badly damaged plane in a brush area alongside the roadway.
"(Witnesses) saw the aircraft kind of swirling, and it started going down pretty immediately. It doesn't sound like it was pretty high off the ground--maybe 50 to 100 feet off the ground," said Capt. Larry Subervi with the Phoenix Fire Department. "The engine flew about 100 feet, there are two wings that completely separated from the aircraft that are laying in the middle of the road, and somehow miraculously, nobody else was injured secondary to the crash."
“Parts of the plane were all scattered down the street,” said Darrell Brethauer.
Brethauer says he saw it all unfold Tuesday.
Police tape halting traffic as people scrambled to pull two men from a mangled two seater aircraft laying along 19th Avenue.
Witnesses say the plane took off from Deer Valley Airport and immediately experienced a problem in the air.
A hard bank back to the runway slammed them into a fence and tree, tearing off he aircrafts wings.
“There was two guys, they look like they were in their twenties, younger,” said Brethauer.
Brethaurer works across the street and heard the impact. Even 24 hours later he’s still struggling to hold back his emotions, his own two sons not far from his mind.
“I just sat there and prayed for them,” said Brethaurer.
“The engine block was probably like thirty feet away from the plane itself,” said Chris Younger.
Younger works at a nearby scrap yard.
“I was just standing right over here and I hear a big boom and I look over and then I see a dirt cloud in the corner over there near the road,” said Younger. “I figured it was car accident so I started walking over their and I see people rushing over their and everyone is like call 911, call 911,”
He says at least 20 people worked to cut a tree out from around the plane and free the two men.
Even asking him for an electric saw.
“We don’t have a cordless saw so we couldn’t give them one,” said Younger.
Police and fire rescue arrived within minutes but Younger says the two men didn’t look good.
“They looked pretty banged up, pretty bad,” said Younger.
Tonight the FAA is still investigating the crash as family, friends and the community rally around the two men now fighting for their lives.
