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Gaithersburg, Md. • A small, private jet crashed into a house in Maryland on Monday, killing a woman and her two young sons inside the home and three people on the aircraft, authorities said.

The jet slammed into the home just before lunchtime in Gaithersburg, a Washington, D.C., suburb, Steve Lohr, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue chief, said during a news conference.

Authorities quickly said all three people in the plane had been killed but it took hours for them to sweep the home and confirm that three people were inside when the plane crashed. They were later identified as a woman and her two sons, a month-old infant and a 3-year-old, said Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger.

Neighbors and property records identify the home's residents as Ken and Marie Gemmell.

The two-story, wood-frame home was gutted by the impact of the crash and ensuing blaze. The first floor was nearly completely blown out and smoke drifted from a gaping hole in what was left of the collapsing roof. Two adjacent homes also had significant damage; one of them caught fire.

Officials said the founder and CEO of a North Carolina clinical research organization was among those on the plane. Health Decisions of Durham, North Carolina, said in a news release that Dr. Michael Rosenberg was among those killed. Rosenberg was a pilot who crashed a different plane in Gaithersburg on March 1, 2010, according a government official who asked not to be named. Investigators are still trying to determine if Rosenberg was at the controls in Monday's crash.

Fred Pedreira, 67, who lives near the crash site, said he had just returned home from the grocery store and was parking his car when he saw the jet and immediately knew something was wrong.

"This guy, when I saw him, for a fast jet with the wheels down, I said, 'I think he's coming in too low,'" Pedreira told The Associated Press. "Then he was 90 degrees — sideways — and then he went belly-up into the house, and it was a ball of fire. It was terrible. I said, 'My God, those are people in that plane.'"

Byron Valencia, 31, who also lives nearby, said he was in his kitchen when he heard a jet engine flying overhead, and then a big thump shortly after.

"When I opened my window, I could see smoke over the trees and I heard a small explosion, like a pop," he said. "I could see the smoke rising ... It's scary."

Emily Gradwohl, 22, who lives two doors down from the house the jet hit, was home at the time of the crash and ran outside to see what had happened.

"I heard like a loud crash, and the whole house just shook," Gradwohl said. "We got jackets on, ran outside and saw one of the houses completely set on fire."

She said planes fly low over the neighborhood every day but she had never worried about a crash until now.

An FAA spokesman said preliminary information showed the twin-engine jet was on approach at the nearby Montgomery County Airpark. The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team to investigate.