The plane that crashed in a fireball near Buttonwillow Wednesday morning may have been doing low altitude aerobatics, according to one witness.
Two people aboard a World-War II vintage single-engine airplane were killed when the plane crashed in a field about a mile south of Highway 58 near the Frito Lay plant.
The plane impacted in a plowed field, scattering debris for several hundred feet.
The largest part of the fuselage ended up in a canal.
Both bodies were found around that part of the wreckage, Kern County Fire Department spokesman Sean Collins said.
The victim's identities has not been released.
Manual Puga was in the area watching the plane.
He said it dipped very low over an orchard, then rose up, wheeled around and dipped again, this time crashing.
“It just went in,” Puga said. “Once it hit the ground, it just exploded.”
Collins said the plane nosedived into the ground, bursting into flames.
“It created quite a large debris field,” Collins said.
The plane, an AT-6, was used for training pilots during World War II.
The crash was reported at 11:34 a.m.
