A twin-engine plane broke apart in flight and crashed, setting a home on fire in the L.A. suburb of Yorba Linda, killing five people and injuring two.
YORBA LINDA, Calif. — Dave Elfver was getting ready to go to a friend’s house to watch the Super Bowl when he heard a whining sound in his Southern California neighborhood “like a motorcycle going a hundred miles per hour.”
Then, he said, came the explosion from a twin-engine plane that broke apart in flight and crashed, setting a home on fire in the Los Angeles suburb of Yorba Linda, killing five people and injuring two.
“The whole house shook. I thought it was an earthquake, but the whining sound didn’t make any sense.”
Elfver, 75, said he ran to his backyard and saw a house engulfed in flames. He ran toward it along with a crowd of neighbors, and only then he saw an airplane wing in the street.
“I didn’t realize what it was until I ran around the corner,” he said Monday.
Across the street, one of the columns of a neighbor’s home was collapsed and debris from the plane was strewn throughout the street. Another home had broken windows.
The four people on the ground who died were all in the house that burned. The pilot was also killed and was the only person on the plane, Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Cory Martino told reporters.
Martino said the dead occupants of the home were two males and two females but he did not further identify them.
The Cessna 414A, which can carry up to eight people, took off from the Fullerton Municipal Airport about 12 miles (19 kilometers) west of the blaze, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer said.
