A mini plane carrying at least two passengers crashed into an East Haven home Friday morning en route to Tweed-New Haven Airport, according to The New Haven Register.

The pilot, 55-year-old Bill Henningsgaard of Medina, Wash., had been flying his 17-year-old son Maxwell to visit Yale, the next stop on a nation-wide college tour. At approximately 11:25, half a mile shy of the airport, Henningsgaard’s airplane malfunctioned, sending it cascading toward a house on Charter Oak Avenue in East Haven. Both were pronounced dead on Friday night by East Haven police.

When the plane crashed, a mother and her two children were inside the home, she in the front and her children likely in the back. The mother,
39-year-old Joann Mitchell, was able to escape, though her two children, 13-year-old Sade Brantley and 1-year-old Madisyn Mitchel, did not.

The cause of death for all four victims was determined to be blunt force trauma, according to the state’s chief medical officer.

Investigators on Friday night said  there may have been as many as six victims, though a final number of casualties has not yet been announced.

MICHELLE HACKMAN