Nashville crash: Witness heard sputtering from Ontario family’s plane [Video]

Nashville, Tenn. –

A preliminary report from U.S. authorities probing a plane crash in Tennessee that killed a family of five from Ontario said one witness heard “sputtering” and “popping” sounds from the aircraft’s engine moments before it crashed alongside a highway west of downtown Nashville.

Friday’s report from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board described how pilot Victor Dotsenko of King Township, Ont., told a Nashville International Airport controller in a “faint transmission” that his engine had shut down.

“I’m going to be landing, I don’t know where,” said Dotsenko, according to the report.

The controller declared an emergency and cleared Dotsenko to land the plane carrying his wife and three children on a runway.