NEW YORK (AP) — A small plane carrying three people plummeted into a residential Long Island street with a fiery crash Sunday, killing two people aboard as neighbors tried to douse the flames with fire extinguishers and garden hoses, authorities and witnesses said.

The single-engine, propeller plane went down around noon in Shirley, shortly after taking off from nearby Brookhaven Calabro Airport, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said.

The front of the plane landed on a tree-lined street flanked with homes — ending up about 100 feet from the nearest house and several hundred from half a dozen others — and its tail plunged into a nearby construction trash bin, said Jeff Litwin, who lives on the street a few hundred feet from the crash on Helene Avenue. He was in his basement when he heard what sounded at first like thunder, but he then heard another explosion, realized it wasn’t the weather and went outside.

A neighbor “was trying to put out the fire with a garden hose, but it was too hot and he couldn’t get to a person trapped inside,” Litwin said by phone.

Jane Unhjem, 60, of Goshen, N.Y. died several hours after being hospitalized with burns. Her husband, Erik Unhjem, 61, was listed in serious condition at Stony Brook University Medical Center.

Authorities did not release the name of a man who died at the scene. It was not immediately clear who was piloting the plane.

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