(WBIR) - Friends and acquaintances are mourning the apparent deaths of members of a Knoxville area family killed when their private plane crashed into a Massachusetts home and burned.
Police tentatively identify the dead as Joseph Richard "Rick" Kalister, an emergency room physician, his wife, Betty, and daughter, Nicole, a 2015 Farragut High School graduate. The family lived in Knoxville.
Betty was an instructor at Real Hot Yoga in Knoxville, and a coworker said she was full of life.
"She was always a ray of sunshine," Aaron Goodman said. "(She) always had a smile on her face."
He said she was a known leader in the yoga community.
"Betty's kind of the mold, the glue that holds all the studios together," Goodman said.
Farragut High School said Nicole was a standout student.
"Nicole embodied the Admiral spirit engaging herself fully during her high school career," Farragut High School principal Stephanie Thomas said in a statement released through Knox County Schools. "She was an excellent student and involved herself in many extracurricular activities. The Farragut family is devastated by this loss and asks for prayers."
Plainville, Mass., police say they think Kalister was piloting the Beechcraft BE36 plane that went down in the town about 30 miles from Boston. Identities are still unconfirmed because of the extent of the injuries, said Plainville Police Chief Jim Alfred.
Alfred said the state medical examiner will have to do further testing to make positive identifications.
All four residents of the Plainville home escaped unharmed after the crash.
Minutes before the crash, the pilot calmly told an air traffic controller he had no engine power and was gliding in the minutes before impact.
"We have no engines. I need help," Kalister radioed to air traffic control as he sought to land the plane safely. An air traffic controller tried to get the pilot to land on an interstate a few miles away, Boston area media reported. The pilot tried, but couldn't.
Kalister was medical director of Starr Regional Medical Center in Athens, Tenn. Records show the six-seat plane was registered to a company in Cleveland, Tenn., identified as Island Airways, records show.
It had been traveling from Lancaster, Pa., to Norwood, Mass. southwest of Boston, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The crash occurred about 5:45 p.m. Sunday.
Plainville is about 20 miles south of Norwood.
Teachers, in statements released by the Knox County school system, offered praise for Nichole Kalister, who was going to attend Northeastern University in Boston.
"Nicole Kalister was not your ordinary student to have in class, but was a designer, photographer and writer on an ordinary day; she was an amazingly talented young girl. She shared her creativity through her designs and with a camera," Michelle Brossett said in a statement. "Daily she walked into class with a cheery disposition and shared it with all those in class around her. Nicole was a student you could always count on, who was bigger than life and ready to share it with the world."
Morgan Rutherford recalled that Nicole was "an incredibly bright young woman who was never afraid to be herself."
The NTSB is on the scene. Experts will be looking to determine the cause of the crash. They'll be looking at what if anything was wrong with the engine.
The Federal Aviation Administration also went to the scene.
It's expected preliminary information about the crash will be released by the NTSB in 10-14 days but the final report could take much longer.
The Associated Press contributed to this crash.
