Four killed in Connecticut plane crash

A firefighter surveys the crash scene in in East Haven, Connecticut. Picture: AP Source: AP

Investigators in the Connecticut plane crash that killed four people say they've found no obvious signs there was anything wrong with the plane.

Crews removed charred sections of the plane as National Transportation Safety Board investigators worked to determine the cause of the crash.

NTSB investigator Patrick Murray said the plane was upside down upon impact at about a 60 degree angle.

He said the pilot was making his first approach to the airport and did not declare an emergency before the crash.

Before analysing any data, Murray said at a news conference in New Haven: "We don't have any indication there was anything wrong with the plane."

A preliminary NTSB report on the crash is expected within 10 business days. A more in-depth report could take up to nine months.

Authorities previously said as many as six people could have been killed.  Two children, ages 1 and 13, have been missing since the plane crashed into their home.

Firefighters work at the scene of the plane crash. Picture: AP

Earlier, it was revealed a former Microsoft executive and his teenage son were among four people killed after the plane crashed into two houses as it tried to land at a nearby Connecticut airport on Friday.

Emergency crews pulled the bodies of pilot Bill Henningsgaard, his passenger son Maxwell, 17, and two young children in a home struck by the plane, from the site on Friday night.

East Haven Fire Department deputy chief Anthony Moscato said the bodies were found just before midnight and are believed to be the only victims.

The multi-engine, propeller-driven plane struck the two small homes near Tweed New Haven Airport just before noon Friday (2am AEST). The aircraft's left wing lodged in one house and its right wing in the other.

The 10-seater plane, a Rockwell International Turbo Commander 690B, flew out of Teterboro Airport in New Jersey before crashing.

The remains of the victims were sent to the Connecticut medical examiner's office as the National Transportation Safety Board continued its investigation of the crash.

A family member said the pilot was former Microsoft executive Bill Henningsgaard, who was taking his son, Maxwell, on an East Coast tour of colleges.

The family learned it was Bill Henningsgaard's plane through the tail number, said his brother, Blair Henninsgaard, the city attorney in Astoria, Oregon.

It wasn't his first crash.

In April 2009, Henningsgaard was flying a small plane from Astoria to Seattle when the engine quit and he tried to glide back to the airport. As he wrote 10 days later on a blog post, the plane crashed into the Columbia River after a harrowing five-minute descent. He and his mother, a former Astoria mayor, climbed out on a wing and were rescued.

Henningsgaard was a member of Seattle-based Social Venture Partners, a foundation that helps build up communities. The foundation extended its condolences to his wife and two daughters.

"There are hundreds of people that have a story about Bill - when he went the extra mile, when he knew just the right thing to say, how he would never give up. He was truly all-in for this community, heart, mind and soul," the foundation wrote in a post on its website.

Tweed's airport manager, Lori Hoffman-Soares, said the pilot had been in communication with air traffic control and hadn't issued any distress calls.

"All we know is that it missed the approach and continued on," she said.

A neighbour, David Esposito, said he heard a loud noise and then a thump: "No engine noise, nothing."

"A woman was screaming her kids were in there," he said.

Esposito, a retired teacher, said he ran into the upstairs of the house, where the woman believed her children were, but he couldn't find them after frantically searching a crib and closets. He returned downstairs to search some more, but he dragged the woman out when the flames became too strong.

He spent 14 years at Microsoft in various marketing and sales positions, according to his biography on Social Venture Partners website. He was a longtime board member at Youth Eastside Services, a Bellevue, Washington-based agency that provides counselling and substance-abuse treatment, and led the organisation's $US10.7 million ($11.7 million) fundraising campaign for its new headquarters, which opened in 2008.

A vigil for the victims of the crash is planned for Saturday night at Margaret Tucker Park in East Haven.

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