A small plane crashed into a house bordering a golf course in suburban Austin,Texas, U.S. and burst into flames Tuesday, killing the six people aboard. Three people inside the luxury two-story home escaped unharmed.

Two children -- including one who was just 18 months old -- their parents, a pilot and another person were killed after the twin-engine prop plane refueled and took off from Lakeway Airpark just before noon, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman John Clabes said.

The family was apparently from Edmond, Okla.; the pilot was from Oklahoma City, Clabes said. Clabes did not know where the sixth person was from. He declined to release their names.

Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange said she did not know where the plane originated, but witnesses at the airport said it was headed to Oklahoma City.

Relatives of the family aboard the craft watched the takeoff and saw the crash, Clabes said.

"We just looked up and saw the aircraft and it was going slow, wings level," said Bert Brown, a retired American Airlines pilot who was golfing when the plane crashed. "I saw him try to either make a left hand turn or stalling out.

"With that, he lost lift and crashed right into the ground."

Laurence and Jacqueline Elliott, along with an appliance repairman, were in the house but managed to escape just as the crash occurred, said a friend, Ellen Roberts. She said Jacqueline Elliott described the scene as "an inferno."

Todd Moore, who lives about 600 yards away from the crash site, said neighbors told him the homeowner saw the plane approaching as he stood on an upper patio, and he ran to his wife in the kitchen, grabbed her and raced out of the house.

The house, which is adjacent to a golf course, is less than two miles away from the private airport, which the community's residents created.

Ann Lowe, 19, who lives across the fairway from where the plane crashed, said she heard the plane fly low over her house and then saw it disappear below the treeline.

Lowe said she ran outside, heard screams and then noticed her neighbor's house. "I felt the heat and heard windows exploding in the house," she said.

The plane hit a 3- to 4-foot retaining wall between the home and the golf course, then plowed into the back patio area. The plane's cockpit was lodged in the charred, blackened rear of the house and small pieces of it littered the yard. Smoke poured from a hole in the tiled roof for a few hours.

All six bodies had been recovered from the crash site by Tuesday evening, authorities said.

Source: Agencies