NEW YORK, May 21 (Xinhuanet) -- A single-engine plane crashed Saturday onto the beach at Coney Island, New York, killing all four people aboard, officials said.

    Witnesses said they heard the engine of the four-seat aircraft stall at least once before the fatal plunge.

    Some also said they saw the nose of the plane lift once or twice just before it headed downward, as if the pilot was struggling to regain altitude.

    The cause of the crash, the first fatal small plane crash in the city in about a decade, was not immediately known.

    Like all domestic air crashes, it will be investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which expects to issue a preliminary report in about a week.

    The passengers, all from West Virginia, were on a flight by an instructor to introduce them to flying to see if they want to learn how to fly, said Luke Schiada, senior air safety investigator for the NTSB.

    People on the beach, a light crowd seven days before the traditional Memorial Day weekend opening of city beaches, scattered when they saw the plane nosedived.

    "Something went tragically wrong and four people are dead and our prayers go out to their families and to them," said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg at a brief news conference.

    "I think the good news, if there could be good news, is that this beach opens next week and so there were not very many people here, so nobody was injured on the ground," said the mayor. Enditem