Small plane goes down in Maryland woods with three people aboard

A search that began with an unusual alert ended Sunday morning with the discovery of a wreckage in Maryland woods and the deaths of three people aboard. The single-engine Piper Cherokee departed Ocean City, New Jersey, at about 11:30 p.m. Saturday and was en route to Montgomery County Airpark in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Rescuers located the crash site around 3:45 a.m., roughly four hours after the aircraft disappeared from its expected path. Investigators believe the plane belonged to a local flight school in Montgomery County and may have been conducting a training flight. Multiple agencies conducted simultaneous ground and aerial searches. The debris was found scattered across about 100 feet of wooded terrain behind a fence near a townhome community and close to a public playground, and no injuries were reported on the ground. The NTSB is leading the investigation with FAA involvement.