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'It was a loud bang': Residents describe plane crash into Lake Murray

On Thursday afternoon, a two passenger plane crashed into Lake Murray. Here's what residents say they saw and heard.

LAKE MURRAY SHORES, S.C. — On Thursday, a small plane crashed into Lake Murray around 1:45pm.

According to officials, two passengers were aboard the plane, and no one was injured. 

One resident told News 19, he thought it was gun shots. 

"I was just sitting here, and I heard a loud bang. It sounded like a shotgun shell," said Clay Morley. "So, I went out the front door to see if I could find something. The first thing I did, I looked across the street and saw six men building a pole barn, and still working, so it couldn't have been too much. Then my son calls me up. He lives across the cove. And he said, 'did you see that plane in a parachute come down"' I said, 'What?' And he said, 'Yeah, a parachute on the plane underneath it.'"

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Morley said he has been living in his home since 1989, and has never seen a plane crash into the lake. His son Mike also shared what he witnessed from his home.

"It was a loud bang," Mike Morley said. "I didn't know what happened. I didn't hear the plane come over, that's the thing."

He says he saw the plane in the trees near his home. 

"I go outside, and I'm looking around, and then all of a sudden, above those two trees, I see a nice big orange parachute," Mike Morley said. "And ... I'm looking around for smoke because I thought 'that's a parachute, a plane hit the ground,' No smoke, and then I look back again. I said, 'there's a plane attached to that parachute.' I've never seen nothing like it. I just slowly watched it drift down. And I said, 'that's in the lake.'"

The FAA is currently investigating what caused the crash. 

The agency said the aircraft was traveling from Greenville Downtown Airport to Charleston International Airport when the crash occurred.

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