TORRANCE -- Investigators are still trying to determine what went wrong in a Muskoka plane crash that killed two people yesterday.

Clifford Keats thought he heard a freight train passing his home on Lake Muskoka seconds before the Cessna floatplane crashed into the bush 60 metres away, killing two people onboard.

"I came out and saw the fire," Keats, 67, told the Sun last night.

He walked into the bush on a neighbour's cottage property but didn't realize the shredded wreckage was a plane, "until I saw the propellor."

"The flames were about 75 feet in the air," he said.

The 10-year-resident said, "I hollered out but there was no answer."

OPP investigators waited near his blue-and-white cottage for federal transportation officials and a coroner to examine the bodies and what was left of the small plane.

Bracebridge OPP Const. Skeeter Kruger said the plane crashed into trees and narrowly missed cottages around 3:30 p.m. yesterday.

Kruger said little of the plane was recognizable after the crash, near Neal's Rd. outside of Torrance -- about six km southeast of Bala.

Kruger said the plane took off near Sandy Point Rd. in Lake Muskoka and had been flying southeast.

DON.PEAT@SUNMEDIA.CA