An elderly couple walked away without any injuries after a small cargo plane crashed into their home in Chicago, only inches away from where they were sleeping. The pilot, however, died at the scene when his Aero Commander 500-B plane slammed into the Southwest Side house at around 2:40 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Shortly after taking off from the Midway International Airport, the twin-engine plane aircraft crashed through the ground floor into the basement of the red-brick home, officials said.

"The wreckage was about 8 inches away from them," Assistant Chicago Fire Department Commissioner Michael Fox said, referring to the two residents, according to The Associated Press. "It's very lucky. They were in a bedroom next to the living room, and the living room is gone,"

Fox also said that the"floor of the living room collapsed into the basement," The Chicago Tribune reports.

Not only did the 84-year-old man and 82-year-old woman survive the attack, but they also refused medical attention.

"They're OK. Not a scratch on them, not a scratch on them," Jeanine Venckus, the couple's neighbor, said. "They're shook up and bewildered."

The pilot, who has not been identified, reported engine trouble shortly after takeoff and asked to return to the airport. However, the plane crashed about a quarter mile away from the runway, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said.

The pilot was alone on the aircraft and originally intended to fly the 1964 plane to Ohio State University Airport in Columbus.

Witnesses said the crash shook other homes in the neighborhood.

"It wasn't a big boom noise," Robin Vrablic told WBBM radio. "It just shook the ground, and the chandelier had shaken, or something, so we went out the front, and went down there, and I was astounded that it took the whole front of that house out."

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