At least five people were killed Sunday when a plane apparently broke apart in the air and plummeted into a neighborhood in Yorba Linda, an Orange County city southeast of Los Angeles. The pilot died, along with four people in a house hit by wreckage. Officials aren't sure what caused the crash.
Two of the victims owned the two-story stucco house that was hit and was engulfed in a raging fire, said Lt. Cory Martino of the Orange County Sheriff's Department.
Several witnesses described a dramatic scene in which the aircraft, a 1981 twin-engine Cessna 414, burst into flames and began breaking apart even before it hit the house. Security surveillance footage seemed to confirm that version of events, showing the out-of-control plane trailing black smoke as it fell to the ground.
"The plane blew up about 100 feet off of the ground. The plane blew up in the sky," neighbor Jared Bocachica told local TV station KTLA news. "I come out ... it's raining plane parts from the sky."