3 dead after plane rips roof off Minnesota home, victims identified

HERMANTOWN, Minn. — Three people aboard a small airplane were killed when it crashed into a two-story house, but the home’s occupants were miraculously uninjured.

Jason Hoffman and his wife had been asleep for a little over an hour when a Cessna 172 tore through the bedroom ceiling of their Hermantown home just before midnight on Saturday.

“We couldn’t hardly see each other through all the insulation dust. I was able to grab a flashlight next to the bed and the first thing I saw was an airplane wheel sitting at the end of our bed,” Hoffman told The Associated Press. “That’s when we looked out and noticed the entire back half of our house was gone.”

According to Minnesota Public Radio, the control tower at Duluth International Airport contacted police when they noticed a small plane had disappeared from radar, believing it may have crashed.

The wreckage of the plane wound up wedged between Hoffman’s truck and the garage, according to the AP.

All three people aboard the plane were killed in the accident. On Sunday, authorities later said passengers Alyssa Schmidt, 32, her brother Matthew Schmidt, 31, and pilot Tyler Fretland, 32, were killed in the crash, according to MPR.

The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash.

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