Federal investigators will try to determine why a small plane catapulted into a Gaithersburg, Maryland, home as it crashed, killing three people in the plane and three in the home Monday.

APTOPIX Plane Crash House Montgomery County, Md. firefighters stand outside a house where a small plane crashed in Gaithersburg, Md., Monday Dec. 8, 2014. A small, private jet has crashed into a house in Maryland's Montgomery County, and a fire official says at least three people on board were killed. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana Plane Crash House Montgomery County, Md., firefighters walk to the house where a small private jet crashed in Gaithersburg, Md., Monday, Dec. 8, 2014. A woman and her two young sons inside the home and three people on the aircraft were killed, authorities said. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana APTOPIX Plane Crash House Firefighters stand outside a house where a small private jet crashed in Gaithersburg, Md., Monday, Dec. 8, 2014. A woman and her two young sons inside the home and three people on the aircraft were killed, authorities said. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana Plane Crash House The window of a house is damaged after a small private jet crashed into a house in Gaithersburg, Md., Monday, Dec. 8, 2014. A woman and her two young sons inside the home and three people on the aircraft were killed, authorities said. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana Plane Crash House The wreckage of a small private jet sits in a driveway after crashing into a neighboring house in Gaithersburg, Md., Monday, Dec. 8, 2014. A woman and her two young sons inside the home and three people aboard the aircraft were killed, authorities said. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana Plane Crash House The wreckage of a small private jet sits in a driveway after crashing into a neighboring house in Gaithersburg, Md., Monday, Dec. 8, 2014. A woman and her two young sons inside the home and three people aboard the aircraft were killed, authorities said. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana The plane crashed into a home. No one on the flight survived. WTOP/Bruce Alan U/D plane into a house Drop Forge Lane, G'Burg, several house damaged,#mcfrs FFs involved search, rescue & firefight pic.twitter.com/or3I2TJ4Ii — Pete Piringer (@mcfrsPIO) December 8, 2014 (WTOP/Bruce Alan) G'Burg Plane crash - MCFRS have fire(s) knocked down, several home were on fire, plane crashed into 1, damaged others pic.twitter.com/cTWFu6IEDo — Pete Piringer (@mcfrsPIO) December 8, 2014 (WTOP/Bruce Alan) Three killed, three homes damaged or destroyed by small plane crash in Gaithersburg. Half miles from Airpark. pic.twitter.com/YTPGJuGTpV — mollenbeckWTOP (@mollenbeckWTOP) December 8, 2014 (WTOP/Bruce Alan) If you look closely, you can see part of the aircraft here. pic.twitter.com/lCE75zvPf1 — mollenbeckWTOP (@mollenbeckWTOP) December 8, 2014 (WTOP/Bruce Alan) At briefing, fire chief Steve Lohr says three people on board plane killed. Three residents still not accounted for. pic.twitter.com/dXAmeBikZo — mollenbeckWTOP (@mollenbeckWTOP) December 8, 2014 (WTOP/Bruce Alan) G'Burg plane crash has resulted in 6 fatalities, 3 on plane & 3 in house - news briefing shortly pic.twitter.com/bHKY8fW6aS — Pete Piringer (@mcfrsPIO) December 8, 2014 (WTOP/Bruce Alan) G'Burg Plane crash all occupants of house have been accounted for @MCFRS_FireChief to brief Media w/NTSB at 430p pic.twitter.com/Z65HdSSbRh — Pete Piringer (@mcfrsPIO) December 8, 2014 (WTOP/Bruce Alan) G'Burg plane crash - twin engine jet plane came down near houses on Drop Forge Lane near Blue Smoke Lane pic.twitter.com/pa2J8IDXqW — Pete Piringer (@mcfrsPIO) December 8, 2014 (WTOP/Bruce Alan) 370568 FILE -- Wreckage from the plane crash lines in the yard of a home in the area of Drop Forge Lane near the Montgomery County Airpark in December 2014. WTOP/Bruce Alan Ken Gemmell, Marie Gemmell This undated handout photo provided by Ken Gemmell show Ken Gemmell and his wife Marie. Marie and their two sons died when a plane crashed into their house in Gaithersburg, Md. Monday. An online fundraiser has collected more than $300,000 for the surviving family members of a Maryland mother and her two young sons killed when a jet crashed into their home. AP Photo Cole Gemmell, Devin Gemmell This undated handout photo provided by Ken Gemmell shows Gemmell's sons Cole, left, and Devin. They and their mother Marie Gemmell were killed in the plane that crashed in their house in Gaithersburg, Md., Monday. An online fundraiser has collected more than $300,000 for the surviving family members of a Maryland mother and her two young sons killed when a jet crashed into their home. AP Photo Ken Gemmell, Cole Gemmell, Arabelle Gemmell This undated handout photo provided by Ken Gemmell shows Gemmell with his son Cole and daughter Arabelle. Cole, his mother Marie Gemmell, and brother Devin were killed in the plane that crashed in their house in Gaithersburg, Md., Monday. Ken and his daughter Arabelle weren't home at the time. An online fundraiser has collected more than $300,000 for the surviving family members of a Maryland mother and her two young sons killed when a jet crashed into their home. AP Photo Ken Gemmell, Marie Gemmell, Cole Gemmell, Devin Gemmell This undated handout photo provided by Ken Gemmell shows Ken Gemmell, his wife Marie, son Cole and daughter Arabelle. Marie Gemmell and sons Cole and Devin were killed when a plane crashed into their house in Gaithersburg, Md. Monday. An online fundraiser has collected more than $300,000 for the surviving family members of a Maryland mother and her two young sons killed when a jet crashed into their home. AP Photo Ken Gemmell, Marie Gemmell, Cole Gemmell, Arabelle Gemmell This undated handout photo provided by Ken Gemmell shows Gemmell, his wife Marie, son Cole and daughter Arabelle. Marie Gemmell, and their sons Cole and Devin were killed when a plane crashed into their house in Gaithersburg, Md. Monday. An online fundraiser has collected more than $300,000 for the surviving family members of a Maryland mother and her two young sons killed when a jet crashed into their home. AP Photo David Hartman, 52, was among the three people on board the Embraer 500 jet plane that crashed into a neighborhood near the Montgomery County Airpark on Dec. 8, 2014. Hartman Chikioke Ogbuka, 31, Michael Rosenberg, 66, were killed. Hartman was the vice president of clinical pharmacology, pharmacokinetics and nonclinical development with Nuventra. Courtesy Nuventra Robert L. Sumwalt National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) member Robert L. Sumwalt stands next to the black box that was retrieved from Dec. 8, crash of an Embraer EMB-500/Phenom 100 in Gaithersburg, Md., at NTSB headquarters in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014. The aircraft crashed in a residential neighborhood in Gaithersburg, Md. AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais Plane Crash House The black box retrieved from Dec. 8, crash of an Embraer EMB-500/Phenom 100 in Gaithersburg, Md., is displayed at NTSB headquarters in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014. The aircraft crashed in a residential neighborhood in Gaithersburg, Md. AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais Small Plane Crashes Into Residual Area In Suburban Maryland Utility workers and emergency personnel work near the site where a small plane crashed into a residential neighborhood Dec. 8, 2014 in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Win McNamee/Getty Images News/Getty Images An investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) examines wreckage at the site where a small plane crashed into a residential neighborhood Dec. 8, 2014 in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Win McNamee/Getty Images News/Getty Images Plane Crash House The wreckage of a small private jet sits in a driveway after crashing into a neighboring house in Gaithersburg, Md., Monday, Dec. 8, 2014. A woman and her two young sons inside the home and three people aboard the aircraft were killed, authorities said. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana ( 1 /27) Share This Gallery: Share on Facebook. Share on Twitter. Share via email. Print.

WASHINGTON – Federal investigators will try to determine why a small plane catapulted into a Gaithersburg, Maryland, home as it crashed, killing three people in the plane and three in the home Monday.

The victims

The dead have been identified as 36-year-old Marie Gemmell and her two sons, 3-year-old Cole and 7-week-old Devin, police say.

Gemmell tried to protect the children from the smoke and fire, but there was nothing she could do, Montgomery County police spokesman Capt. Paul Starks said. Her body was found in a second-floor bathroom, lying on top of her sons.

“This is a tragic loss for the Montgomery County community,” says Montgomery County Fire Chief Steve Lohr said.

They are survived by the woman’s husband and a 5-year-old daughter who was at school at the time of the accident, officials says.

A GoFundMe account has been started by a friend of the Gemmells to help with funeral and other expenses. BY 3 a.m. Wednesday, it had raised just under $300,000.

Click to donate to the Gemmell Family Fundraiser

Of the three people killed on the plane, two have been identified. The third was tentatively identified.

One was Dr. Michael Rosenberg, founder and CEO of Health Decisions, a clinical research organization in Durham, North Carolina. Rosenberg was piloting a plane that crashed in Gaithersburg on March 1, 2010.

“Everyone at Health Decisions is devastated by the loss of our friend and colleague Michael Rosenberg,” Health Decisions Vice President of Clinical Affairs Patrick Phillips said in a statement. “The thoughts of the management and employees of Health Decisions go out to Dr. Rosenberg’s family as well as to the families of the other passengers.”

Dr. David Hartman of Nuventra Pharma Sciences in North Carolina also died. Hartman was a scientist who developed drugs with an expertise in drug metabolism.

In a statement, Geoffrey Banks, CEO of Nuventra Pharma Sciences writes, “We are deeply saddened by the loss of David and will miss him both personally and professionally.”

Montgomery County police are investigating the deaths.

Chikioke Ogbuka, 31, of Raleigh, North Carolina, was tentatively identified on Tuesday as the third victim.

Crash

The twin-engine plane, a Embraer EMB-500/Phenom 100, went down on Drop Forge Lane, less than a mile from the Montgomery County Airpark at 10:44 a.m., damaging three homes.

The Gemmell home was gutted by the crash and ensuing blaze. The first floor was nearly completely blown out. No one was injured in the two adjacent homes that also had major damage.

It took firefighters several hours to shore up the destroyed house in order to search the upper levels where the family was found, Montgomery County Fire Chief Steve Lohr said.

The jet’s fuselage crashed into the front lawn of a home adjacent to the Gemmell’s, which was heavily damaged by fire, and investigators believe one of its wings, which had fuel inside, sheared off and tore through the front of the Gemmell home, said Robert Sumwalt, a National Transportation Safety Board member. Witnesses reported seeing and hearing a secondary explosion after the plane hit the ground.

The Embraer 500 was traveling from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to Montgomery County and was making an instrument-guided approach to land at the Montgomery County Airpark at the time of the crash.

Near the airfield along a small cul-de-sac of homes, investigators found a narrow gash through the roof of one house. Part of the fuselage came to rest against a second house with the tail of the plane landing in front of that house. One wing catapulted into the third house, which suffered the brunt of the fire damage and which was where the mother and children were found, Sumwalt says.

Wings carry fuel, which could have triggered the fire, he says.

Investigation

National Transportation Safety Board investigators will spend the next week or so gathering evidence at the scene.

“Our mission is to find out not only what happened but why it happened because we want to make sure something like this never happens again,” Sumult says.

Investigators will try to determine whether Rosenberg was at the controls at the time of Monday’s crash.

They have recovered the the cockpit voice and flight data recorders, which were rushed to D.C. for analysis, says spokesman Sumwalt.

NTSB Investigator Robert Swaim recovers the flight data recorder at scene of today's crash in Gaithersburg, Md. pic.twitter.com/wMglm8lMLv — NTSB (@NTSB) December 9, 2014

During the NTSB review, investigators will look at the plane’s engine and flight controls, weather, radar and communication with air traffic controllers and other aircraft using the field as they reconstruct the crash.

The agency planned to look into everything that could have led to the crash, including crew experience and proficiency, training and procedures, equipment performance, weather and other environmental factors, Sumwalt said.

Among the possibilities investigators will consider is whether a flock of birds contributed to the crash.

“That is one of the many things that we will look at. So I’ll put it to you this way, nothing is off the table, everything is on the table,” Sumwalt says.

After the investigators gather information, they will determine the cause of the crash.

Area residents have been given the OK to return to their undamaged homes, but have been told that the investigation will restrict access to their neighborhood.

Snouffer School Road, which had been closed, reopened Tuesday morning.

Witnesses

While it’s too soon to know what went wrong, several eyewitnesses tell WTOP that the plane appeared to be struggling before it went down. The initial 911 call reported an explosion and a building fire.

Vaughn Smith tells WTOP he was waiting at the light at Lewisbury Park and Snouffer School Road when the plane went down.

Smith says the brightly colored blue-and-white plane was struggling back and forth.

The plane was about 100 feet from Smith’s vehicle and about 50 feet off the ground when it went by him, tipping its wings.

“It had crashed into a house, and the house was engulfed in flames,” Smith says. “I called 911, and they didn’t quite know about it yet.”

Witness Larry Matthews tells WTOP that the plane “was making strange noises, like the engines weren’t fully functioning.”

“It was flying very erratically. It was kind of left and right. Its wings were dipping, and it appeared to me to be out of control,” Matthews says.

“This guy, when I saw him, for a fast jet with the wheels down, I said, ‘I think he’s coming in too low,'” Fred Pedreira, 67, who lives near the crash site, told The Associated Press. “Then he was 90 degrees — sideways — and then he went belly-up into the house and it was a ball of fire. It was terrible.

“I tell you, I got goosebumps when I saw it,” Pedreira said. “I said, ‘My God, those are people in that plane.'”

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Follow @WTOP on Twitter and on WTOP Facebook page.