Three young men have been killed in a light plane crash that narrowly missed smashing into houses and a playground.

The three Israeli citizens died instantly when the single-engine Piper PA-28 Cherokee went down in Bowie, Maryland, about 11.30pm on Saturday.

David Rabinowitz, 19, from Haifa in Israel, Yoav Bomrind, 26, from Zichron Yaakov in Israel, and Elad Naidik, 20, from Toronto were found dead at the scene.

Bomrind was flying the aircraft on a training flight from Ocean City, New Jersey, to  Montgomery County Air Park in Gaithersburg, Maryland, according to its flight plan.

The plane belonged to a flight school based out of the Air Park, according to the Maryland State Police. 

The cause of the crash is unknown and will be investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration.

Alarms were first raised by an automated alert sent out by one of the victims' iPhone and it took four hours to find the wreckage in the woods.

Residents on Scarlet Oak Court awoke to find the plane had barely missed their homes and a nearby playground.

Kirby Mackall posted photos of wreckage from the plane lying just several feet from her door the next morning. The debris field covered 100ft.

'Woke up to a plane crash in our backyard! God is good, it could have hit our home how close it was,' she said.

'[We] heard the crash but didn’t think it was [anything] like that.'

Bomrind was adopted from Ukraine at just one year old and was in the US trying to fulfil his dream of becoming a professional pilot.

His father Shalom said he was a skilled soccer player, with his father posting dozens of photos of him playing for local clubs, amateur pilot, and volunteer policeman.

'He was a beautiful, smart young man and the best son parents could ask for,' Shalom told Israeli media. 

Bomrind is survived by his parents and sister Inbar, 21, who is an officer in the Israeli army.

Hours before his death, he posted a tribute to his friend, Sergeant First Class Nir Ben Ari, who was killed in action in Lebanon.

'Unbelievable, we grew up together,' he wrote. 

Naidik worshipped at Chabad of Maple outside Toronto with his parents Oren and Niri, and which posted photos of his Bar Mitzvah in 2018.

Other photos showed him helping to set up marquees for religious events.

Why Rabinowitz and Naidik were in the US and on the flight with Bomrind is unclear. 

Recovery of the bodies for burial was facilitated by ZAKA, an Israeli search and rescue organization, and volunteers from the Metsalchim charity.

'For long hours, we worked with due respect for the deceased, collecting all the findings and treating the difficult scene,' Yanki Landau, head of ZAKA's US operations, said.

Naidik will be buried in Toronto and the others repatriated to Israel for services. 

The Israeli Consul in Washington and the Department for Israelis Abroad at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was assisting the trio's families.

The NTSB said investigators would review the plane’s maintenance history, weather conditions, air traffic communications, and the pilot’s flight records.