by KYW's Hadas Kuznits
The FAA says the crash of a small plane near Northeast Philadelphia Airport on Thursday morning killed two people on board.
A student pilot, said to be practicing takeoffs and landings for his flight test, crashed a small plane into a warehouse parking lot, killing the pilot and an instructor.
The plane went down in the loading dock of a warehouse near the airport, near Academy Road and Grant Avenue, just before noon. Its burning wreckage wound up under a row of truck trailers.
Holly Baker, an FAA spokeswoman in Atlantic City, says two people died. She says the plane was a single-engine Grumman Trainer, which is a two-seater model often used for pilot training.
Baker says the pilot was doing "touch-and-go" practice take-offs and landings at the time it crashed.
City firefighters put out the blaze.
The plane was owned and operated by Hortman Aviation, a flight school and rental company based at the airport.
Owner Herb Hortman says the Grumman Trainer has a good safety record and that there was no indication of trouble as the plane lifted off from the runway. He said the accident appears to be a "stall-spin," a mishap caused by the pilot mishandling the aircraft in flight.
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