Aaliyah and the others had come to the Bahamas to shoot a music video, authorities said. Theirtwin-engine Cessna was bound for Opa-locka, Fla., when it went down roughly 200 feet (60meters) from the end of the runway at Marsh Harbour airport on Abaco Island, 100 miles (161kilometers) north of Nassau on Saturday.

A witness, Claude Sawyer, said he was alongside the runway when the plane started to plummet.

“It appeared to be a normal takeoff,” Sawyer, a 25-year-old pilot, told The Associated PressAugust 27. “It departed and he rotated the nose (of the plane) and lifted off the ground. After thathe pulled his landing gear up and then the plane veered slightly to the left and then it wenttoward the ground.”

Sawyer said he saw the plane disappear below the trees and then saw a ball of fire. He could nothear any engine noise.

Bahamian investigators have searched through the wreckage for clues to the crash. PoliceSuperintendent Basil Rahming said only that one of the Cessna’s engines “apparently failed.”

On August 27, two local newspapers, The Tribune and The Freeport News, quoted a baggagehandler they did not name as saying he had warned the pilot that the plane was too heavy for asafe takeoff.

Gloria Knoles, an office manager for Abaco Air, a local airline that flies in the Bahamas andFlorida, said on Saturday night she saw a pickup truck headed toward the plane with equipmentand luggage that towered above the truck’s sideboards.

“I thought, ‘That’s a lot of stuff to be on a plane with nine passengers,”‘ she told the AP.

Lewis Key, a Bahamian pilot on Abaco, said he had heard rumors the plane was overloaded, buthe did not believe extra weight could have caused the crash if both its engines were working.

Key, who said he has flown the same model of Cessna in the past, said that judging by thedistribution of the wreckage, it appeared the plane veered off sharply, indicating a failed engine. Authorities from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal AviationAdministration arrived August 27.

Aaliyah (pronounced Ah-LEE-yah), who had two Grammy nominations, a platinum album andseveral high-profile movie roles, was killed instantly. Five others on board also died in the crash,while three more died later of their injuries, Rahming said.

Born in New York City and raised in Detroit, Aaliyah – whose name in Arabic means “powerfulone” – had deep roots in the R&B community. She later returned to live in Manhattan. She issurvived by her mother, father and brother.

“Aaliyah’s family is devastated at the loss of their loving daughter and sister,” said a statementfrom the singer’s publicist, PMK. “Their hearts go out to those families who also lost their lovedones.”

Police identified the other victims as bodyguard Scott Gallin, 41; Keith Wallace, 49, of LosAngeles; Douglas Kratz, 28, a representative for Virgin Records, makeup artist Eric Foreman,29, Gina Smith, 29, all of Hollywood, Calif.; Anthony Dodd, 34, of Los Angeles; andChristopher Maldonado, 32, of New Jersey. The plane’s pilot, identified only as L. Maradel, alsodied.

Andrew Kelly, a pilot who owns Abaco Air, helped Gallin before he was loaded onto a planebound for a hospital in Nassau.

He said Gallin had mild burns on his arms, a laceration to his mouth and a twisted ankle.

“He was conscious when he was on the ground,” said Kelly, 48. “He kept asking for water. Helooked like he was going to make it. I told him all I had was red and green Gatorade and he askedfor the green Gatorade, but the nurse wouldn’t let him have it.”

Kelly, who then flew Gallin to the hospital, said Gallin was given water by a nurse and collapsedsoon after. A medical team could not resuscitate him, Kelly said.

The bodies were taken to the morgue at Princess Margaret Hospital in Nassau, where they wereto be kept for relatives to help identify them, U.S. Embassy spokesman Brian Bachman said.

The Cessna 402B was owned by Skystream, a company based in Pembroke Pines, Florida, saidKathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Atlanta. Thecompany’s telephone number was not listed, and company officials could not immediately bereached for comment.

A spokeswoman for Wichita, Kansas-based Cessna, Marilyn Richwine, said she was not awareof any safety problems with the twin-engine 402B model. The company hasn’t manufactured thatmodel for about 12 to 15 years, she said.

Aaliyah’s song “Try Again” earned her a Grammy nomination this year for best female R&Bvocalist. She was nominated in the same category in 1999 for “Are You That Somebody.” In1996, she released her second album; the single, “If Your Girl Only Knew,” went doubleplatinum.

Aaliyah made her first feature film appearance last year in the movie, “Romeo Must Die.” She was born Aaliyah Haughton on Jan. 16, 1979, in Brooklyn. She made her stage debut as anorphan in a production of “Annie” at the age of 6. Her uncle was married to soul singer GladysKnight, who invited Aaliyah to perform with her during a five-night stint in Las Vegas at age 11.

Aaliyah struck a licensing deal as a teen-ager after her uncle, Barry Hankerson, formedBlackground Records.

Aaliyah went gold with her debut album, Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number, in 1994 – whenshe was 15 – and benefitted from working closely with hip-hop artist R. Kelly.