DeLand, Florida -- Shoppers got quite a shock when a small plane crashed into Publix.

It happened in DeLand, in Volusia County, about 40 miles northeast of Orlando. We know five people were hurt.

The Publix is almost right in the flight path of the airport.

Witnesses say the experimental plane sputtered and then fell out of the sky. It flew over a Lowe's and a retention pond before it smashed into the Publix supermarket.

The hero here is apparently the manager of the meat department.

Our fellow CNN affiliate, WFTV, reports the plane crashed into that meat department at about 7:30 Monday night.

The pilot and co-pilot climbed out of the wreckage with their clothes on fire.

The manager was the one who put out those fires and got the two men out of the chaos inside the store.

Witnesses said the folks in the store were panicked with good reason -- one man was reminded of his time at war.

"There was a zip zoom, like artillery. If you've been on the business end of that, you know what it is," the witness told CNN affiliate Central Florida News 13.

Officials told WFTV there were 33 employees and 35 shoppers in the store at the time.

Three shoppers were hurt, but none seriously.

The two people who were in the plane were flown to Orlando Regional Medical Center with severe burns.

Publix is based in the Tampa Bay area; its headquarters complex opened in Lakeland in 1951.

Grayson Kamm, 10 News