Taylorville, IL (KSDK)--There are still a lot of questions about the Central Illinois plane crash that took the life of the pilot. The twin engine plane went down Saturday morning in a backyard in Taylorville, Illinois That's about 90 miles northeast of St. Louis.

Just hours after the crash, police tape surrounded the scene. One day after, we walked right up to the backyard where it happened, right up to the imprint the plane has left in the earth.

Bits of metal are crumpled up and littered across the backyard, it's now become a stop for locals.

"It's pretty astonishing, it really is, all I have to say is that guy was a hero, plain, pure and simple," says John McClure, who's a former pilot himself.

He says to make this kind of landing is no easy task.

Around noon on Saturday, neighbors say the twin engine plane came nose-diving towards the earth, not long after some skydivers had jumped from the aircraft. The pilot, 30 year old Brandon Sparrow, died in the crash.

"If he would have come in on a straight run, he probably would've wiped out three or four houses here and no telling what would've happened," says McClure.

The homeowner says aviation officials told him the two engines were buried 4 1/2 feet underground.

The National Transportation Safety Board's investigation will take months to tell us what technically went wrong with the plane, but what about those skydivers?

The 12 that we were told were on board? When did they jump? Where did they jump? Before or after the pilot knew they were having problems, apparently even the mayor in Taylorville can't answer that.

"People tend to make up their own little stories in situations like these when we don't have the facts, kind of fill in with their own imagination," says Mayor Greg Brotherton. "That's why we have to wait and get it straight."

He says he knows how much worse this crash could've been.

"Whether it was the hand of God or directed by this pilot we are just very lucky that more houses weren't hit and more people weren't hurt," the mayor says.

NewsChannel five did reach out to the Mid-America Sport Parachute Club based out of Taylorville to get some of our questions answered and we did not get a call back.

We were told that the pilot's mother visited the crash scene Sunday and buried a wreath right where the plane crashed, in honor of her son.

KSDK