The three people killed when their plane crashed near homes in Palos Hills were physicians from Kansas who had flown to Chicago for the day, police and relatives said.



Tausif Rehman, 34, a neurosurgeon at Stormont-Vail HealthCare in Topeka, Kan., was visiting a friend. With him were Ali Kanchwala, 36, a close friend and a pulmonologist who also worked at Stormont-Vail HealthCare, and Kanchwala's wife, Maria Javaid, 37, a cardiologist at Providence Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan., said Javaid's brother, Bilal Javaid.



"She had a wonderful life, it just ended tragically," Bilal Javaid said Monday.



"Dr. Rehman and Dr. Kanchwala were extremely valued, highly skilled and beloved members of our staff," said Randy Peterson, president and chief executive officer of Stormont-Vail HealthCare. "We are heartbroken. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of these individuals and the staff who worked closely with them.



No distress call was sent from the plane, a twin-engine Beechcraft Baron that took off from Midway Airport headed to Lawrence, Kan., before it crashed about 10:40 p.m. Sunday, just five minutes after takeoff, said John Brannen, senior air safety investigator for the NTSB.



"The plane simply dropped off the radar," Brannen said.



The plane was near vertical when it crashed in a small field in the 10100 block of South 86th Court, he said. Palos Hills Police Chief Paul Madigan said it did not damage any homes, though a family in the home closest to the plane was evacuated as a safety precaution and there was minor damage to a vehicle parked in the driveway.



"It's very fortunate it didn't hit any houses and no wires," said Palos Hills Deputy Police Chief James Boie, adding there was also no fire.



Brannen said the plan had fueled up at Midway and investigators planned to check the truck and take samples of the fuel. He said the investigation was still preliminary and nothing was being ruled out, including the overcast skies and the pilot's experience.



The pilot, Rehman, had a private license and was trained on single and multi-engine planes, Brannen said.



"He was a pretty good pilot, and I flew with him a lot," said Ahsan Awan, who said he was a close friend of Rehman. "He was always very careful. I have no idea how this could have happened."



Awan, of Denver, Colo., said he'd tracked their flight to Chicago online to make sure they arrived safely, but didn't check yesterday and assumed his friend – "like a brother" – had already made it home.



Neighbors said they could hardly believe the homes near the crash site escaped unharmed.



Palos Hills resident Michael D'Alessio, who lives with his family a few blocks away from the crash site, said he woke up after hearing the sound of the plane going down and called 911 immediately.



"It was very loud," D'Alessio said. "I heard a loud pop. ... Planes fly over our area all the time. But this was different."



When D'Alessio went outside, he said there was an airplane seat on the ground near the crash scene.



His daughter, Amanda D'Alessio, 16, said she was putting away her math homework, getting ready for school in the morning.



"All of the sudden you hear a big crash and feel the house shake," Amanda said, adding that she first thought it was a car accident. "All of the sudden all the neighbors are out."



Billy Williams, 64, said he was coming home from work a little after 10:30 p.m. when he heard what at first sounded like a plane circling too close to the ground.



"I thought it was someone playing, flying low," he said Monday morning.



Dan Jurevis, 35, who lives around the corner from where the plane crashed, said he was at home in bed when he heard sounds of a plane in distress, "like the pilot was trying to give it more power," he said.



Jurevis and Williams said they immediately ran out to see if they could help, arriving around the same time as police.



"An officer shined a light in the cabin and said, 'You're not going to want to see this,' " Jurevis said.



He said he could smell airplane fuel and saw debris from the plane strewn 50 yards from the cabin, which stopped very near a house, he said.



"I had trouble sleeping, I kept hearing that noise over and over," he said.



"It's surreal, if I was in my backyard I could throw a baseball and hit it. I feel terrible for the people in the plane, but also lucky no one was hurt down here," Jurevis said.



Bilal Javaid said he didn't know of his sister and brother and law's traveling plans until they were already in the air, but that wasn't unusual, he said.



"She was very spontaneous," he said. "She'd go skydiving and not tell me until after because she knew I'd worry."



All three were originally from Pakistan, friends and family said. Rehman earned his medical degree at Aga Khan University in Pakistan in 2002, completed an internship in general surgery at Brown University in 2005 and did additional general surgery training at Weil Cornell Medical College and New York Presbyterian Hospital, according to a statement from Stormont-Vail HealthCare. He spent five years as a neurosurgery resident at the University of New Mexico before coming to Stormont-Vail in 2013.



"He was a role model for all of us, all his cousins," said Javeria Usmani, 24, Rehman's second cousin. "He always seemed really alive, he was a great talker, very inspirational and just a really good person. We really looked up to him," she said.



Kanchwala and Javaid met in medical school at DOW University of Health Sciences in Pakistan, Bilal Javaid said. Both also studied at SUNY Upstate Medical University, Kanchwala a resident in internal medicine and Javaid pursuing a fellowship in cardiology.