5 dead after small plane crashes into Southern California home

The scene in Yorba Linda, California, after a small plane crashed into a house.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Alex Gallardo)

Five people were killed on Sunday afternoon when a small airplane crashed into a home in Yorba Linda, California.

The victims include the pilot and two women and two men who were inside the house, the Orange County Sheriff's Department said. The pilot was the only person on board the plane. Officials said two additional people were taken to the hospital with mild to moderate burns.

The Cessna 414 took off from Fullerton Municipal Airport at 1:35 p.m., and about 10 minutes into the flight, started a quick descent, the Los Angeles Times reports. The plane slammed into the two-story house, which immediately went up in flames. The wreckage spread out across four blocks, with the propeller landing in the front yard of one home and the main cabin in a ravine behind another house.

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Neighbor Nancy Mehl told the Times "it felt like a bomb went off" through the front of her house. A piece of the engine knocked down a pillar on her porch, she said, then smashed through the front window, flying through two rooms before crashing to the floor of a bathroom. An investigation is now underway to determine the cause of the crash.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.