Rhode Island couple killed in Dartmouth plane crash, woman injured

Two people were killed when a small plane crashed along Interstate 195 in Dartmouth, according to Massachusetts state police. One person in a car on the ground was also injured.

Officials have identified the two fatalities as Thomas Perkins, 68, and his wife Agatha Perkins, 66, both of Middletown, Rhode Island.

The single-engine plane crashed around 8 a.m. after taking off from New Bedford Regional Airport during a Nor’easter storm Monday. Sources told 7NEWS the plane was in the air for barely a minute before it went down.

Officials said the plane skidded across several lanes of traffic before going up in flames. The aircraft crashed into a silver sedan, flinging that car off the road. The female driver walked away without injury, according to her mother-in-law.

Another car blew a tire when it hit a piece of the plane. That driver was not hurt.

The crash scattered debris all over the area, some even found in the nearby woods.

Interstate 195 westbound in Dartmouth was closed for hours at Exit 19 as a result, according to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

7NEWS Sources said the plane was reportedly en route to Kenosha, Wisconin.

The FAA and NTSB are working with Massachusetts state police to investigate the incident.

— Aviation Experts weigh in on the investigation into the crash —

7NEWS spoke with an aviation expert regarding the crash, who identified just what the agencies investigating will likely be looking for.

“The NTSB is very good at this,” Captain J.F. Joseph said. “The good thing is it looks like the [remnants] are confined to one area, so that when they do the analysis of the aircraft systems components, probably all the equipment will be there so that they can get a good look at it and determine whether or not there were any anomalies within the aircraft itself. The other thing that they’ll look at very closely will be the physiological perspective of the pilot they’ll certainly look at his past performance, medical pathology, to ensure there was no physiological episodes that contributed to the mishap.”

This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.