Plane Crashes Into Townhouses in Oregon

0:17A small plane struck a row of townhouses in Fairview, Ore., according to the authorities, who said at least three people were missing.CreditCredit…KPTV

By Emmett Lindner and Kimberly Cortez

Aug. 31, 2024Updated 7:04 p.m. ET

A small plane crashed on Saturday morning in a residential neighborhood near an airport in Fairview, Ore., according to the authorities who said that three people were missing.

The plane had at least two people on board when it struck a row of townhouses around 10:30 a.m. local time, with a fire spreading from two units to four, according to Chief Scott Lewis of the Gresham Fire Department of Gresham, Ore., a neighboring city.

Two people who were aboard the plane and one person from a home were missing, he said.

At least five families were displaced from their homes. Two transmission lines from Portland General Electric were down as a result of the crash, which happened near an airport in Troutdale, Ore.

Video footage from the scene showed flames rising from a building in a neighborhood with townhouses that are tightly packed together.

At some point during the crash, a power pole or tower fell, starting a brush fire, according to John Plock of the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office. “That fire, luckily, was kind of adjacent to a swampy area, so it didn’t really spread,” he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane was a twin-engine Cessna. The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash along with the F.A.A.

Fairview is a city of about 11,000 people that is roughly 12 miles east of Portland, Ore.