A small plane crashed next to an interstate highway in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday night, killing all five people on board, police said.
The single-engine plane crashed close to a Costco store on the eastbound lanes of the I-40, near the Nashville suburb of Charlotte Park, just before 8 p.m. The Federal Aviation Administration was on the scene Monday night, and investigations from the National Transportation Safety Board were due to arrive Tuesday, police said.
None of the victims have so far been named. No other vehicles or buildings were hit.
Cellphone video shot by motorists and passengers traveling westbound that was posted to social media showed a fiery wreckage.
The Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority said in a statement it was "alerted of a single engine aircraft crash three miles south of John C. Tune Airport, near I-40," at 7.49 p.m.
Police said the pilot had requested an emergency landing at nearby John C. Tune Airport, having radioed to say he was having engine trouble.
"Approval was given to land on runway 2 at John Tune Airport. But the pilot then radioed that the aircraft was not going to make it," police spokesman Don Aaron said at a news conference at the crash scene Monday night.
Mayor Freddie O’Connell said in a statement on X: "Our thoughts go out to the loved ones of all those on board the single-engine aircraft that crashed near Interstate 40 this evening."
Nashville fire spokesperson Kendra Loney said at the news conference: "When that plane did go down, it did, as witnesses described, implode on impact. That impact was catastrophic and did not leave any survivors."
Loney added that firefighters were able to extinguish the flames and preserve evidence that may help to determine the cause of the crash.
