Photo courtesy: NVidia

Steven L. Fordyce, 49

NEWBERG, Ore. -- Pilot Steven L. Fordyce, 49, and passenger Pamela J. Lusardi, 53, were killed in Wednesday's small plane crash near Newberg, Yamhill County Sheriff Jack Crabtree said.

No one on the ground was hurt.

Fordyce and Lusardi regularly commuted from Salem to Hillsboro together, investigators said. Lusardi worked at Intel in Hillsboro and Fordyce worked as a system design engineer at graphics firm NVidea in Beaverton.

Coworkers said they share a deep sense of loss over the tragedy and they are praying for the families.

Lusardi, known as “Peet” to her friends, worked for Intel for nearly 30 years and was currently an engineer at the Jones Farm campus. An Intel spokesperson said she will be greatly missed.

Greg Gritton worked with Fordyce “It was surprising because they told me his plane had crashed. I didn’t know he had died so I had asked, ‘how bad of a crash was it?’ and they said, ‘no, he died,’” Gritton said, still shaken by the news.

The 1959 PA22 Piper plane went down just after 7:30 a.m. at 16461 NE Mountain Home Road, near the intersection of NE Bell Road. It dove nose-first into a front yard and almost hit someone walking his dog, witnesses told KGW. Firefighters called it a "violent, horrendous crash."

Slideshow: Photos of crash scene

First responders described weather conditions at the time as "foggy, cold and rainy," with low visibility.

"The crash site is near the summit of Chehalem Mountain, at approximately 1,000 feet of elevation," said Crabtree, adding that conditions were "not suitable for visual flying at the time of the crash."

KGW photo

People at the crash scene hug while looking over the wreckage.

Witnesses told KGW they saw the plane overhead, heard a "sputtering noise," and then it seemed to stall. The plane barely missed a large home but left a "gaping hole" in the front yard, neighbors said, and exploded into hundreds of pieces.

Neighbors said they ran outside after hearing the explosion and were "overwhelmed by the smell of fuel."

"It was just coming down and it was -- boom! There was no sliding, no nothing, no screaching -- an instantaneous impact," said Greg Neurohr, who lived nearby.

When he ran over to the crash scene, Neurohr said he was able to see the female passenger and her wedding ring.

"It was very scary -- all the adrenaline, running, you know -- we were all running over here to see if there was someone we could help," neighbor Nancy Mankin said. "Our neighbors came out the door; thank God it didn't go into their house."

Jeff Ropeig, who also lived nearby, said it looked as if a bomb had detonated in his neighbor's front lawn.

"Just a pile of rubble. You could hardly recognize it as a plane ... everything was just in a bunch of pieces," he said.

Crews responded quickly to the scene, along with investigators. First responders speculated that the pilot may have tried avoiding the house before crashing.

"That is the first crash we have heard of out here, but we have a lot of aircraft, typically a lot of small aircraft, a lot of helicopters too," Steve Everley, who lives about 200 yards from the crash site, told the AP.

He said the house the plane missed was "a very expensive home. ... they had it on the market but had taken it back off. It was on for $1.7 million."

The Newberg airport is approximately two miles from the crash site.

Debris and rubble from the crash began to be hauled away on trucks and trailers later Wednesday afternoon.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Yamhill County sheriff's office were handling the investigation on the ground. The investigation may take weeks or even months, NTSB authorities told KGW.

Investigators said it was "very fortunate" that no one else was killed in the crash due to the density of homes in the area.

KGW Reporters Anne Yeager and Teresa Yuan, and the Associated Press, contributed to this report.