Residents in a Miami suburb used an ax, fire extinguisher and garden hose to rescue four people from a small plane that crashed into a tree in yet another mishap near a busy South Florida airport. “It was nothing short of heroic,” Angelo Castillo, the mayor of Pembroke Pines in Broward County, said Tuesday.

Two major tragedies in a city have taken a toll on residents, a council leader said.

Essex Police said it was alerted to a 12-metre plane on fire at the site in Rochford near Southend, just before four PM on Sunday afternoon.