Two men were killed when a single-engine Piper Cub crashed off Clark Road in Smithfield yesterday around 5 p.m.

The Providence Journal Richard C. Dujardin

SMITHFIELD — Two men died when a small plane crashed on its way to North Central State Airport about 5 p.m. yesterday, exploding in a ball of fire in woods off Clark Road, about a half-mile from the airport.

James J. Warcup, aeronautics inspector for the Rhode Island Airport Corporation, withheld the names of the two men on board pending notification of next of kin. He said they were both from Rhode Island and experienced pilots. They took off from T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, where the red-and-white single-engine Piper was based.

“All indications are that the plane had left Green airport to do a practice approach on Central, but lost power, for whatever reason,” he said.

Ernest Robert, of 43 Clark Rd., said he and his wife and son were at home when they heard an explosion. “It was definitely loud. It kind of shook you. My wife came flying out of the living room. She and my son saw a fireball 25 feet in the air, higher than the tops of the trees.”

Robert said there is an old utility shed in the woods and he initially believed there may have been a pile of debris in the shed that someone torched.

“I grabbed the fire extinguisher, and when I got there I didn’t know what it was. There was still popping going on. I didn’t recognize it was a plane. It didn’t cross my mind.”

On the way back to the road, Robert said he ran into his neighbor, Carol Dionisopoulos, who had also called 911 and lives at 66 Clark Rd. Dionisopoulos said that moments before the explosion she heard the sound of a plane. “I thought nothing of it because lots of times we get low-flying planes around here. Then, I heard the crash.”

Looking out her window, she saw flames about 300 feet into the woods.

Robert said that when Dionisopoulos told him she heard a plane, “it dawned on me what it was.” They went back to the fire, and this time saw the fuselage, two wings and wheels facing upwards.

“There’s a clearing up there. It looks as though the plane hit the tops of some of the trees, before landing in front of a stone wall that one of the property owners had built.”

The two used flashlights to see if anyone was inside, but could not get close because of the flames.

The single-engine plane was registered to Robert A. Zoglio Jr., of 207 New London Turnpike, Richmond, according to a bulletin from the Federal Aviation Administration. It was unconfirmed last night whether Zoglio was one of the individuals on the plane.

Warcup said that when Smithfield firefighters arrived the plane was engulfed in flames. They immediately had extinguished the blaze by the time inspectors and a contingent of state police arrived at the scene.

He said the wings and tail of the plane were still intact, but little else.

“It’s not likely we will have all the details at least for a couple of days,” he said. “It looks as though the pilot was trying to maintain control and to land in an appropriate area.”

The two individuals were pronounced dead at the scene by an official from the state medical examiner’s office.

rdujardi@projo.com