NTSB: Visibility marginal when plane crashed into home

GAITHERSBURG, Md. — Visibility was marginal when a private jet crashed into a neighborhood about three-quarters of a mile short of an airport runway last week, federal officials said.

The Embraer EMB-500/Phenom 100 originating from Chapel Hill, N.C., was using an instrument approach, and its pilot, who died in the crash, was airline-transport rated, according to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board released Tuesday. Its destination was Montgomery County Airpark, which opened in 1959 about 20 miles north of the nation's capital and has since become surrounded by suburbia.

The Dec. 8 crash killed a mom and her two children on the ground as their home became engulfed in flames from aircraft debris that catapulted into the first floor. Marie Gemmell, 36, gathered her two sons, Cole Gemmell, 3, and Devin Gemmell, 6 weeks, in a second-story bathroom trying to shield them because firefighters said flames blocked all exits.

All three people on the plane — pilot Michael Rosenberg, 66, chief executive of Health Decisions; David Hartman, 52, a vice president at Nuventra Pharma Sciences; and Chijioke "Chiji" Ogbuka, 31, a regulatory affairs manager at Health Decisions, all of Raleigh, N.C. — also died.

The plane with a tail number of N100EQ was registered to Sage Aviation of Chapel Hill, the NTSB report said.

The plane's debris hit three homes with much of the fuselage settling in the front yard of a home adjacent to the Gemmells.

In the past eight days, more than 10,000 people have donated almost $470,000 via a GoFundMe account for the Gemmell family's funeral and living expenses. Marie Gemmell's husband, Ken, and their 5-year-old daughter, Arabelle, were not home at the time of the 10:41 a.m. ET crash.

Typically, NTSB crash investigations take months to complete.