EASTON - "Surreal."

That's how one former pilot described Tuesday morning's tragic plane crash in the parking lot of Hannaford Supermarket at routes 106 and 123.

A sizable crowd of shoppers and area residents and workers who heard about the crash from media or loved ones watched in disbelief from behind yellow police tape as emergency crews tried to make sense of the accident that left the pilot and his two passengers - a Long Island couple - dead.

"It's just surreal. A plane doesn't belong in a parking lot," said the former pilot, a bystander who identified himself only as Mike.

Mike said he flew a Cessna 152 for about a year, out of Hanscom Air Force Base. He last flew four years ago. "It's something I always feared," he said of Tuesday's crash.

Norton resident Jean Ryan said she saw the plane, a single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza "calmly" clear nearby traffic lights before it nosedived into the parking lot.

She was in her car in the nearby Target parking lot, talking to her bank on her cell phone when the plane went down around 10:17 this morning.

"It crashed, and then a second later, it exploded.," said Ryan, who had Tuesday off from job as a cardiac technician at Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro. "There was not a lot of noise. It was just one big cloud of smoke."

Ryan said she called 911 from her phone, and ran over to the plane.

"People were just standing by," Ryan said. "Nobody could do anything. There was nothing you could do."

Ryan said she thought the plane would crash on nearby grass because that's where the front went down of the plane was headed.

Shoppers could've easily died, she said, because people were coming out of the stores and others were parking their cars when the plane crashed.

"It's a tragic situation. Thank the Lord it was not more tragic," she said.

Easton resident Mike Moverman said he and his friends had just bought a loaf of French bread for lunch at home when they saw the plane come over the building. "I was pretty scared," said Moverman, 17. "I was not expecting it. I guess things like this happen sometimes."

Mansfield resident Bill Sherbourne called the crash "one in a million."

"I used to be in the insurance business," Sherbourne said. "This is what they call a 'one in a million accident',"

Sherbourne said he was headed to get groceries when his daughter called and told him, "Don't go up there. There was a plane crash."

"It's just hard to believe. It's a peaceful shopping center," Sherbourne said.

MICHAEL GELBWASSER can be reached at 508-236-0439 or at mgelbwasser@thesunchronicle.com.