God bless the souls of two pilots :( Jefferson City, Mo. (AP) A regional jet with no passengers went down Thursday night in a residential area of eastern Jefferson City, authorities said. Jefferson City police Capt. Michael Smith said only the pilot and co-pilot were aboard the CRJ2, a two-engine regional jet from 2000 that seats up to 50 people. The plane was operated by Memphis-based Pinnacle Airlines, a regional carrier affiliated with Northwest Airlines of Eagan, Minn., Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch said. There was no immediate information about injuries, either to anyone in the plane or on the ground in the neighborhood just north of U.S. 50 a few miles east of downtown. The plane damaged a building, but Smith said early Friday morning that the structure was not believed to be a house. "As of yet, we have recovered no bodies," Smith said. Neither major hospital in the city reported receiving victims from the crash. Smith said the plane was apparently experiencing engine problems when it went down after 10 p.m. "One aircraft engine was along the road. There was some debris in a tree, and a burned area," Smith said. "You could still smell the fuel." Smith said the plane had left from Little Rock, Ark., and was heading to Minneapolis-St. Paul. "We have a large amount of debris from the aircraft," Smith said The pilot and co-pilot were returning the plane to Minneapolis when they tried make an emergency landing at an airport near Jefferson City, Ebenhoch said. Police evacuated a roughly three-block area near the crash site for about an hour. The Red Cross set up a shelter for evacuees, but no one used it volunteer Don Otto said. The National Transportation Safety Board and Pinnacle were sending people to the crash site. John Baysinger told the News Tribune in Jefferson City that the plane crashed in his back yard. "When I looked outside the window, the whole back of my house was on fire," he said. Marc Powers, 35, was about eight houses down from the crash site. "There was a loud crash and that was followed by numerous pops, like someone was discharging a firearm," said Powers, who went to investigate and saw that the plane's fuselage had crumpled or had split apart from its cockpit. Lesley Ammikus was sitting on the deck of her apartment when the plane approached her neighborhood. "I saw it right at the trees. I thought, `That's way too loud and too low,' and it just hit," Ammikus said. "It went boom when it hit." Amanda Clemons, 24, said she heard the plane crash and could see the site from her Jefferson City apartment. "I felt the apartment shake. I thought it was thunder at first, and then maybe an earthquake," Clemons, who is a senior nursing student at Lincoln University, said in a telephone interview.