Two Maine men were killed and two others, one from Maine and one from Massachusetts, were seriously injured Saturday morning when their single-engine plane crashed at the Mansfield Municipal Airport in Mansfield, Mass.

Pilot Lawrence Mann and passenger Cabot Squire, both of Portland, were killed. Jared Lamey of Saco, and Matthew Kramer of Mansfield, Mass., were injured. All four are in their 30s, Mansfield police said.

The plane was rented from Twin Cities Air Service in Auburn.

Mann, a regular customer of Twin Cities Air, rented the Cessna 172 at 7:30 a.m. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, Mann took off from the Auburn airport carrying one passenger and stopped at the Mansfield airport to pick up two others.

A distress call went out around 10:45 a.m., just after takeoff.

“After taking off, it didn’t get a high-enough climb rate,” said FAA spokeswoman Holly Baker. “The pilot radioed a mayday and turned around to try to land. As he was turning, the plane stalled.”

According to the Boston Herald’s Web site, the plane crashed on a rocky ledge on the airport’s northwest side and burst into flames.

Mansfield Fire Department crews extricated the men. Mann and Squire were pronounced dead at the scene. Lamey was flown by medical helicopter to Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he was listed in serious condition late Saturday night. Kramer was flown to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, also in Boston, where he was listed in critical condition.

Nate Humphrey, president of Twin Cities Air, said Saturday night that Mann was a regular customer who’d had his pilot’s license for more than a year.

“He was just a nice man,” Humphrey said.

The crash is being investigated by the Massachusetts Aeronautic Commission, the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board.

Mansfield is about 25 miles southwest of Boston.