A Cessna 310 crashed 'under unknown circumstances' about a half mile northeast of Riverside Municipal Airport in California, according to Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. Photo: TwitterLos Angeles: Four people were killed and two others injured on Monday after a small plane, Cessna 310, crashed into a neighborhood near the airport in Riverside, California, destroying a home and touching off fires in several others, local news media reported.
Images broadcast by KABC-TV from the scene showed firefighters covering what appeared to be a body with a tarp and pouring water on the home in Riverside, about 60 miles (100 km)east of Los Angeles.
The station reported that another victim who was pulled from a window of the home and put on a stretcher appeared to be suffering from severe injuries.
Riverside Fire chief Michael Moore said that the Cessna's occupants, a husband, wife and three teenagers, were returning to San Jose on Monday after a weekend cheerleading conference at Disneyland.
"One of the teenagers, a girl, was thrown from the plane on impact and had only minor injuries. She was able to talk to firefighters about what had happened as she was taken to a hospital," Moore said.
An unconscious victim from one of the homes is in surgery.
Four bodies have been found in the wreckage, but firefighters have not sorted out exactly how many were from the plane and how many from the homes. They are looking for additional possible victims in the wreckage.
The two homes were destroyed, and there was minor damage to some neighboring homes.
Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said that a Cessna 310 crashed "under unknown circumstances" about a half mile northeast of Riverside Municipal Airport.
Gregor said the plane crashed shortly after taking off from the airport, bound for San Jose in Northern California and that the incident would be investigated by the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board.
It was not immediately clear how many people were on board the plane when it took off. According to aviation websites the Cessna 310 is a twin-engine plane that can carry up to six people.
