Traverse City -- Tristan Graham is used to dozens of planes flying over his East Bay Township home, but something didn't look right about the one he spotted wobbling through the sky.
"It looks like it was shaking back and forth," Graham, 31, said of the small craft he saw approaching Cherry Capital Airport shortly before 7 p.m. Thursday. "Two or three seconds later I saw a flash."
Graham and his neighbors on Park Lane Street, just west of Five Mile Road, huddled outside by the police tape as dozens of emergency responders descended on the area, blocking off streets and directing cars for hours in the freezing temperatures.
Two people were aboard a twin-engine Cessna 310 when it crashed, killing one and sending another to Munson Medical Center with third-degree burns, officials said.
Authorities wouldn't provide any identifying information about the plane's occupants Thursday night.
Emergency workers extracted the victims by snowmobile from a densely wooded swamp about a mile southwest of Five Mile and Pinebrook roads roughly an hour after airport tower officials and residents reported the downed plane around 7 p.m., authorities said.
"The debris field is spread all over out there," said Grand Traverse Metro Fire Department spokesman Randy Agruda. "It is very dense, very wooded, very thick back there."
Tower officials refused to comment on the crash, and sheriff's officials didn't immediately return calls for comment. Agruda was not sure where the plane originated.
Cherry Capital Airport Director Stephen Cassens was out of town on vacation Thursday, but was contacted by authorities shortly after the wreck.
"We think the aircraft was out of Indiana, but I can't tell you if it was South Bend or Indianapolis. I don't have a tail number on that aircraft," Cassens said. "We sent a truck out at the time, but then when emergency services got there we were called off before we got on scene. It happened off-airport and that is out of our jurisdiction.
"I think someone is coming from the (Federal Aviation Administration) and will probably be in Traverse City (Friday)," he said.
Authorities initially requested a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter to assist in the rescue efforts, but called it off after locating the plane.
Several roads in the area were blocked off, including Five Mile Road between Hammond and Holiday roads, Evelyn Street at Holiday Road and Pinebrook Road at Five Mile.
Derrick Smith, who lives across the street from Graham, was coming home from working on a boat when he found out about the crash.
"I got a call from my wife, and she was incoherently talking about a plane crashing in the yard," Smith said.
His wife, Erika Escovar, said she initially thought someone was having a heart attack when she first saw ambulances approach. She discovered otherwise when she walked outside.
"Everybody was running in the street," she said. "Airplane crash, airplane crash."
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