FRANKFORT, Mich. -- Two small airplanes crashed in dense fog in northern Michigan about 10 hours apart, killing six people and injuring six others, officials said Friday.
Three people aboard a single-engine Belanca died shortly before dawn when their aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from the Frankfort City Airport.
About 10 hours earlier, three people were killed and six injured when a Simmons Airline twin-engine commuter plane crashed into a wooded area 2 miles south of Phelp Collins Airport near Alpena.
Visibility was about one quarter of a mile at the time of both crashes, authorities said.
Killed in the Alpena crash were copilot Steven Frank, 36, of Vermontville, and passengers James Bray, 58, and Laura St. Amore, 75, both of Sault Ste. Marie.
The six injured were in stable condition at Alpena General Hospital.
At Frankfort, authorities identified the victims in today's crash as Dr. Gordon Willoughby, 56; his wife, Suzanne, 52, and Lambert W. Kramer, 49, all of Frankfort. Willoughby was believed the pilot and Kramer the airport manager.
The three were believe en route to Grand Rapids. A couple discovered the crash wreckage shortly before 7 a.m. about 300 yards from their home, said Deputy Frank Miller of the Benzie County Sheriff's Department.
Cindy House, 29, said she and her husband were preparing breakfast when they heard a humming noise and then lost electrical power.
House said she and her husband, Scott, found the electrical transformer had been sheared off the top of its pole. They then discovered the crash wreckage nearby.
'Scott went to see if he could do anything,' said House. 'The plane wasn't burned but the tail was off and I think a wing, too.'
At Alpena, the twin-engine Bandeirante, or 'Bandit,' sheered off the tops of pine trees before hitting the snow-covered ground late Thursday.
Republic Express Flight 1746 was on a non-stop flight from Detroit to Alpena and was to continue to Sault Ste. Marie in the Upper Peninsula, said Simmons Airlines spokesman Pete Piper.
'Too bad they didn't make it to the road -- they might have made it,' said Randy Cummings, 29, who was driving home from church with his wife and three children when two of the survivors walked out of the woods and flagged him down.
Cummings drove the two men to the Phelps Collins Airport, notified authorities and returned to the scene of the crash -- 30 yards into the woods off Indian Reserve Road.
'I could hear people inside,' Cummings said. 'I triedto get them out. I could see some bodies in the front part of the plane. ... The whole place was drenched with fuel.'
A six-member team from the National Transportation Safety Board was to be sent to oversee the investigation.
