5 Dead After Plane Parts Hit California Homes

Five people died and two others were injured after a small plane apparently came apart, dropping parts that scattered across a southern California neighborhood Sunday and ignited a house fire before landing in a backyard, witnesses and authorities say. The crash shook the Yorba Linda neighborhood about 2pm after the twin-engine Cessna 414A took off from the Fullerton Municipal Airport about a dozen miles west of the blaze, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer says. Authorities say the male pilot, who was the only person in the twin-engine plane, and four people in the Yorba Linda house that caught fire, died, the AP reports.

The two-story house burst into flames after being struck by a plane part, sending panicked neighbors into the streets. "It was a boom. It sounded like something exploded. It shook our house," says John Wolbart, who lives a block away. Aerial footage taken from news helicopters shows plane parts, including side panels and a propeller, scattered on rooftops and driveways near the burned house. The main body of the twin-engine plane was found in the backyard of another home not far from the burned house. The wounded were taken to a hospital with burn injuries, says Pokey Sanchez, an assistant chief with the Orange County Fire Authority. A firefighter was also treated for a minor injury.

(More plane crash stories.)