This image taken from video provided by KRIV FOX 26 shows the scene of a cargo plane crash in Trinity Bay, just north of Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico in Texas. Photos / AP
This image taken from video provided by KRIV FOX 26 shows the scene of a cargo plane crash in Trinity Bay, just north of Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico in Texas. Photos / AP
A Boeing 767 cargo jetliner heading to Houston with three people aboard disintegrated after crashing into a bay east of the city, according to a Texas sheriff.
Witnesses told emergency personnel that the twin-engine plane "went in nose first," leaving a debris field about 1km long in Trinity Bay, ChambersCounty Sheriff Brian Hawthorne said.
"It's probably a crash that nobody would survive," he said, referring to the scene as "total devastation."
It was one of two deadly plane crashes in the US today.
Massachusetts State Police say two people died after a small plane crashed and caught fire at Mansfield Municipal Airport.
Witnesses in Texas said they heard the cargo plane's engines surging and that the craft turned sharply before falling into a nosedive, Hawthorne said.
Aerial footage shows emergency personnel walking along a spit of marshland flecked by debris that extends into the water.
The sheriff said recovering pieces of the plane, its black box containing flight data records and any remains of the people on board will be difficult in muddy marshland that extends to about 1.5m deep in the area. Air boats are needed to access the area.
The plane had departed from Miami and was likely only minutes away from landing at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued an alert after officials lost radar and radio contact with Atlas Air Flight 3591 when it was about 48km southeast of the airport, FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford said.
The Coast Guard dispatched boats and at least one helicopter to assist in the search for survivors. A dive team with the Texas Department of Public Safety will be tasked with finding the black box, Hawthorne said.
Trinity Bay is just north of Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.
FAA investigators are travelling to the scene as are authorities with the National Transportation Safety Board, which will lead the investigation.
A small plane is seen resting on its nose following a crash and fire at Mansfield Municipal Airport in Mansfield, Massachusetts.
In Massachusetts, police say the crash occurred shortly after 12.30 pm local time. State police and the Federal Aviation Administration will investigate, and the National Transportation Safety Board will determine the cause.
An NTSB spokesman says an investigator will be on the site to examine the aircraft and document the scene.
An FAA spokesman says the plane was a Cessna 172.
The airport is about 70km south of Boston.
NTSB's aviation accident database shows there two non-fatal incidents at the airport in 2011 involving an experimental plane that veered off the runway and in 2004 involving a student pilot who taxied the plane to a closed runway.
