The pilot of a small airplane and a passenger died in a crash near Madras Municipal Airport early Saturday afternoon, Jefferson County Sheriff Jim Adkins said.

The plane crashed just before 2 p.m. in a steep and remote area about one mile south of the airport's runway, said Lisa Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Central Oregon Joint Information Center.

When first-responders arrived at the scene of the crash, near the top of Willow Creek Canyon, the plane was engulfed in flames, with a local farmer trying to put out the fire, Goodman said.

The Bend Bulletin has obtained aerial video footage of the scene, shown below.

The plane was approaching the airport when it crashed, said Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

The plane was a single-engine, homebuilt Wheeler Express, he said.

Both the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating. An NTSB investigator is expected to arrive tomorrow.

No information was yet available about the cause of the crash. Officials also were not releasing any information about the pilot or the passenger.

KPIX, a CBS affiliate in San Francisco, reported that the plane was registered to a man from Menlo Park, in the Bay Area, and took off from the airport in San Carlos.

The fire has been extinguished and did not affect the crowd gathered at the airport to view Monday's solar eclipse, officials said. Several people saw the crash, and investigators were interviewing them Saturday afternoon.

NTSB records show that there have been five fatal crashes at the Madras airport since 1964.

The most recent fatal crash was last year. A pilot from Alaska, Marcus Bruce Paine, 61, crashed while performing at an air show.

Three people died in two separate crashes in the summer of 2005. The two earlier fatal crashes were in 1977 and 1964.

-- Carli Brosseau

-- Lynne Palombo contributed to this report.