MUNSTER, Ind. — A plane that crashed into a Munster street, killing both men aboard, had taken off moments earlier from an Illinois airport and was headed back there, the craft’s owner said.

The crash occurred about 7:30 p.m. Friday on the four-lane Calumet Avenue, about one mile east of Lansing Municipal Airport, an air strip along the Illinois-Indiana state border.

Police identified the dead men as David M. Kubsch, 26, of South Bend, and Matthew W. McClure, 26, of Manhattan, Ill., about 25 miles west of Lansing.

The twin-engine Beechcraft Baron they were flying in was registered to SL Air International based in the Chicago suburb of Hinsdale. Owner Steve Leaven said the plane had taken off from the Lansing airport and was returning when it crashed. He declined to say whether the plane was coming back because of mechanical problems.

Leaven said the victims were not employees of SL Air International.

“It’s just a real tough time for everybody,” he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were investigating the cause of the crash, said FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory.

The Lansing airport does not have a flight tower. Planes flying in and out of the airport use instrument flight rules and their radios.

Highland resident Angee Garcia was driving south on the avenue when the plane crashed about 30 feet in front of her.

“There were no flames; it didn’t explode or anything,” Garcia said. “But it was literally (a) straight nose dive into the ground.”

Another witness, Susan Kwasman, lives nearby and said she heard the plane “sputtering.”

Calumet Township resident Terri Booth, a nurse, tried to help at the scene.

“I went to the passenger side because he (the passenger) was half hanging out of the plane. He was unresponsive and didn’t have a pulse,” she said.