The boy was the lone survivor in the crash that killed his family.
ADVERTISEMENTA teenage boy escaped a fiery plane crash that killed his father in Detroit on Sunday night.
The boy, 17-year-old Peyton Boaz, is seen on video rolling out of the smoke-filled small plane consumed by flames. He was later taken to hospital in a critical condition.
His father Greg Boaz and Greg's wife Julie, both passengers, were killed, according to Detroit's 7 Action News.
Bystanders ran to the scene after hearing the crash and desperately tried to pull out survivors.
"One guy, big guy, by a window couldn’t get out and he couldn’t breathe. I had a stick. Didn’t work, so another guy got an axe," Larry Whitfield, 72, told Detroit Free Press.
After warnings that the plane was going to explode, Whitfield and another person used the axe to break the window and open a door. But only Peyton was able to get out.
Whitfield said the others could not escape.
The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates plane crashes in the US, on Monday said there was "no probable cause" yet found for the crash, adding that the pilot reported a "malfunction of the landing gear" to air traffic control before impact.
The pilot also said he was low on fuel while searching for a place to land. There was no further communication between the pilot and air traffic control after this, according to NTSB.