Four friends from the US on a golfing trip were killed when their charter plane crashed into a Melbourne retail outlet and exploded into a fireball.



The Australian pilot and all four American men died in the crash – the worst aviation accident in Victoria in 30 years.



They were heading to King Island to play golf when the plane appeared to suffer catastrophic engine failure moments after taking off from Essendon Airport on Tuesday morning.



Pilot Max Quartermain, and US citizens Greg Reynolds De Haven, Russell Munsch, Glenn Garland and a fourth American whose identity is not yet known, were all on board the Beechcraft Super King Air twin-engine aircraft.



Reynolds De Haven’s family said on social media the men, who had already played golf at exclusive courses Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath as well as in New Zealand, were on the holiday of a lifetime.



“Dear friends and family, my handsome athletic big brother was killed today in a plane accident while on his ‘once in a lifetime’ trip to Australia,” De Haven’s sister Denelle Wicht posted on Facebook.



The men’s wives were travelling with them and had reportedly planned to spend the day on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road while their husbands flew to the remote Bass Strait Island that has become a golfing destination.



Quartermain issued two maydays before smashing into the Direct Factory Outlets in Essendon about 9am, an hour before opening time.



Staff were preparing to open stores but no one was injured as debris fell on to nearby freeways and a fireball that engulfed the plane burned through the stores and into a car park.



“Looking at the fireball, it is incredibly lucky that no one was at the back of those stores or in the car park of the stores that no one was even hurt,” police assistant commissioner Stephen Leane said.



Ash Mayer, a storeman at The Good Guys, felt the crash reverberate.



“We felt just everything shake and a massive explosion and a fireball go up,” he said. “We just knew this was bad and there was nothing we could do.”

The plane had been hired by Corporate and Leisure Travel, a company owned by Quartermain, 63, of Rye, and his wife, Cilla.

Their company’s website says they have “over 38 years of charter services experience and an impeccable safety record”.



The emergency management commissioner, Craig Lapsley, said witnesses had been treated for shock and trauma.



Essendon airport was closed for all except emergencies on Tuesday and the DFO building was being investigated for structural flaws. Schools and freeways nearby were temporarily shut after the crash.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has taken over the investigation, while police have spoken to the immediate family of all victims.



It’s the worst aviation crash in Victoria since 1978 when a light plane crashed into an Airport West home, killing six people.