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Plane crashed in "a fireball"

Police say the three victims of a small plane crash north of Calgary were all men from Alberta.

SUNDRE — Police say the three victims of a small plane crash north of Calgary were all men from Alberta.

RCMP haven’t released the names of the men yet, but have tentatively identified them as a 51-year-old from Calgary, a 42-year-old from Edmonton, and a 43-year-old from Spruce Grove.

The single-engine Cirrus SR-22 crashed by a grove of trees in a farm field near Sundre, northwest of Calgary, on Friday.

Police say in a news release that they still don’t know where the plane was headed.

Witnesses say they saw the aircraft spiral downward and explode in a fireball.

The cause of the crash is being investigated by the Transportation Safety Board.

A father and son working outside on Friday were shocked to look to the sky and see a small plane plummeting toward the ground.

“We were working right here and that plane spiralled down out of the sky right there,” said Jeff Dejax, who witnessed the impact along with his son Lance.

“It was a giant fireball. The worst you could imagine — several hundred feet high. We just took off and called 911 and ran down there.”

Lance Dejax said when he first spotted the plane in its spiral, he was confused.

“I thought it was stunting or something,” said Lance.

It took the pair just a couple of minutes to get to the scene, but they quickly realized there were no survivors and there was nothing they could do.

Sundre’s volunteer fire department arrived at the scene and extinguished the blaze. The crash left a wide swath of debris, with only the plane’s tail section remaining intact.

A small, uncontrolled airport near the town was just 10 kilometres away, but RCMP said there was no reported distress call and no evidence the plane was trying to land or take off.

“We don’t know at this time where the plane was coming from or going to,” said Const. Wes Bensmiller.