2 dead after small plane crashes in Coweta County, officials say

Witnesses are describing the disturbing sounds they heard from a small airplane's engine moments before it crashed Saturday in Coweta County.

Two people died.

Channel 2′s Tony Thomas was in Senoia, where an aircraft crashed into the trees a few feet off of Highway 16 outside Senoia. Investigators plan to return to the site in the morning.

Laquita Connell heard the small plane before she saw it.

“We heard some puttering from an airplane, and it go really low,” Connell said. “It sounded like his engine was cutting out or he was out of gas. It looked like he was about the hit the store, and he pulled up and hit the field.”

The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane was a Mustang Two, a low-wing, two-seat acrobatic plane.

Coweta County Sheriff Lenn Wood told Thomas the pilot had just landed, picked up a passenger and then taken back off from Big T’s airport, a private, grass-lined runway about a quarter-mile from the crash site.

"It was a plane that had just been purchased in Florida and flown up here," Wood said.

Authorities have not publicly identified the pilot or the passenger.

"We were hoping he was able to pull up in time, but he didn't," Connell said.

The FAA is still investigating the crash.

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