UPDATE: Sacramento Doctor, Wife ID'd As Victims Of Arizona Plane Crash

MOUNTAINAIRE, Ariz. (CBS13/AP) — Authorities say a California couple has been identified as the two people killed in a small plane crash south of Flagstaff.

Coconino County Sheriff's officials announced Wednesday that Sacramento doctor Matthew Sullivan Mezger, 59, and his 54-year-old wife Mary Patricia Hughes were the only people aboard the plane that crashed just before noon Tuesday.

The couple was in the middle of an extended Memorial Day holiday.

The plane slammed into the ground shortly after takeoff, just 50 feet from a home near Flagstaff, Ariz., clipping tree tops on its way down.

Video of the aftermath show parts of the plane charred from fire that broke out after the crash landing.

Dr. Stanley Ruggles worked with Mezger for 30 years. He's also a pilot and had flown with Mezger before.

"Well you kind of think it's not going to happen," he said. "All of a sudden it does happen to someone you know very well, and who was a careful guy and careful pilot."

Ruggles says he's also flown out of the Flagstaff airport and knows its challenges.

"I can only think it might have been warm around noontime," he said. "It was high altitude, I don't know how heavy the airplane was. All of those things can affect adversely the performance of the plane."

Investigators say Mezger was the owner and pilot of the Beechcraft 336 single-engine plane.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor says preliminary information indicates the plane left Flagstaff Pulliam Airport and had trouble gaining altitude before crashing about three miles southeast of the airport in Mountainaire.

Sheriff's officials say the plane was headed to Bryce Canyon, Utah.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the cause of the crash.