A Boeing 767 cargo jetliner heading to Houston with three people aboard disintegrated after crashing Saturday into a bay east of the city, according to a Texas sheriff.

Witnesses told emergency personnel that the twin-engine plane "went in nose first," leaving a debris field three-quarters of a mile long in Trinity Bay, Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne said.

"It's probably a crash that nobody would survive," he said, referring to the scene as "total devastation."

Witnesses said they heard the plane's engines surging and that the craft turned sharply before falling into a nosedive, Hawthorne said.

Aerial footage shows emergency personnel walking along a spit of marshland flecked by debris that extends into the water.