The Associated Press

MIDDLESBORO, Ky. - A twin-engine plane swiped the roof of a house near an airport and then crashed onto a city street shortly after takeoff, leaving both occupants injured.

The two-story house caught fire, but the only person inside, who was watching TV in a downstairs room, wasn't hurt.

"The plane was reported to be having problems on the ramp with the left engine starting," Middlesboro-Bell County Airport spokesman John Brown said. "The airplane took off, retracted its gear, and the left engine failed."

He said the 1969 Piper Twin Comanche lost its left wing and engine when it clipped the housetop, then plummeted onto the street near an intersection. A similar crash in 1988 near the same location, just beyond the airport runway, killed three people.

The plane was registered to C.R. Quesenberry Inc. in Abingdon, Va. Cliff R. Quesenberry, 81, was in serious condition Wednesday at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, and his son, Robert "Greg" Quesenberry, 51, was in satisfactory condition.

The crash tore the top off the cockpit.