A small jet crashed in northwest Atlanta Thursday, killing four people aboard and narrowly avoiding crowded industrial and residential areas nearby.
"I was vacuuming and I just heard a big old explosion and the whole house shook," said Sam Smith, a resident.
"The house shook and everybody thought a tree had fell," said Leonard Staples, another resident.
The men said they looked behind their homes and saw a fireball in the football field over the fence line.
Reggie Dumas shot video of it moments afterward. He says it appeared to him that the pilot was trying to crash-land the plane away from the houses and people nearby.
"It was over there, but somehow he got it over to here. I saw it moving side to side," Dumas said.
When the jet crashed, it left a debris field that extended a full one hundred yards. The plane was apparently full of jet fuel – which spilled out and added to the challenge for firefighters who eventually found three victims in the wreckage.
"When it dropped, everything shook. It was you thought it was an earthquake," Staples said.
The cause of the crash is under investigation. The victims haven't been identified.
