A single-engine plane operated by a flight school catering to Japanese visitors crashed shortly after takeoff in Kalaeloa yesterday, injuring a married couple and the pilot.

The plane, a Piper Cherokee manufactured in 1976, and the three occupants were flying practice routes around Kalaeloa but lost power on departure, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

The plane crashed on the 'ewa side of Coral Sea Road shortly after 11:30 a.m. yesterday, knocking down power and telephone lines and cutting power to the state's general aviation airport in Kalaeloa.

A 59-year-old man and his wife, a woman in her 40s, were taken to The Queen's Medical Center along with the pilot, a woman in her 20s. Last night, the younger woman was in serious condition but had stabilized, said Bryan Cheplic, spokesman for the city's Emergency Services Department. The older woman was in critical condition, and the condition of her husband had worsened. He was in serious condition, Cheplic said.

George Aubert, 32, an Army captain home from his third tour in Iraq, was driving with his mother to White Plains Beach when he saw the debris on the road and another driver waving for him to stop.

Aubert said he saw the debris and figured that there had been a car accident. Then he spotted the plane on the side of the road. He told his mother to call 911 while he approached the cockpit and started to pull the three people inside out onto the grass.

"They weren't in any condition to unbuckle themselves. You could smell the gasoline. Normally you don't want to move them but you could smell the gasoline," Aubert said. "The woman (in the front seat) kept asking 'Is this is a dream? Is this for real?' We told her this is for real, but you're OK, help is on the way."

The woman in the back of the plane was hanging almost upside-down when Aubert found her and was hardly coherent and did not speak English, he said. She had a golfball-sized bump on her head and the man onboard the plane had "pretty serious" lacerations and bruises on his face.

It was not clear who was flying the plane, Aubert said.

Based on the tail number of the plane, records show it belongs to Offshore Flight School Inc., a Honolulu company that gives flight lessons to Japanese tourists. Calls to Offshore Flight School's Lagoon Drive office were not returned yesterday.

A search of public records revealed no complaints or issues with the plane during the past 180 days.

After the crash, Honolulu police closed Coral Sea Road until shortly before 2:30 p.m. Federal, state and Honolulu firefighters responded to the scene along with city Emergency Medical Services technicians.

The plane crash is the second involving Japanese visitors this year.

On June 17 an Island Hoppers Cessna tour airplane disappeared in a dense Big Island rainforest with the pilot and two Japanese tourists aboard.

A National Transportation Safety Board report released in July indicated that the weather conditions at the time of takeoff in Kailua, Kona, two hours before the accident offered sufficient visibility.

The report said the plane was "substantially damaged following impact with terrain near Pahala."

The crash generated an island-wide, multi-agency search. The wreckage was found on June 22 in a remote area of the Ka'u Forest reserve at the 5,200-foot elevation.

Killed were pilot Katsuhiro Takahashi, 40; and passengers Nobuhiro Suzuki, 53, and his wife Masako Suzuki, 56, of Japan's Chiba prefecture.