BROOMFIELD, Co (KDVR) — Less than a minute after leaving the Erie Municipal Airport, a single-engine plane crashed into the Anthem Ranch neighborhood half a mile away, killing two pilots.

Sandy Fuhrey was coming home from church.

“I said to my husband, he’s never going to make it,” Fuhrey said. Fuhrey saw the pilots on the ground.

“I jumped out to go hold the hands of the man, but they were already gone,” Fuhrey said as she fought back tears.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators say the Piper aircraft made a shallow climb and then made a left turn and crashed. They believe the pilot may have been trying to make an emergency landing.

“They did turn left in the direction of an east-west running road. There’s a possibility there was an attempt to land on that road,” NTSB investigator Mike Folkerts said.

Investigation into Broomfield plane crash underway

The plane was heard making what are described as two carburetor coughs just seconds before it went down. The NTSB said the propeller hit the asphalt six times before being stopped by a tree next to Kathy and Jim Ferraro’s home.

“I didn’t hear a thing,” Jim Ferraro said.

“It’s too close for comfort that plane was a hundred feet from our house,” Kathy Ferraro added.

Sandy Fuhrey was back at the site to leave two small roses, one for each of the people who died.

“I can’t get it out of my mind. I wanted to come up and give them a flower because I couldn’t hold their hand,” Fuhrey said. In her prayers now are the two who died and investigators now trying to figure out what went wrong.

The NTSB said it could take up to a year-and-a-half before investigators determine what caused the plane to crash.

The identities of the two people who died in the crash have not been released.