Five people were left dead, one of them being the pilot after a small plane crashed into a house on Sunday in Yorba Linda. The home quickly caught on fire, and neighbors rushed outside to find the plane’s parts spread across their lawns.  

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that two men and two women were found dead inside the burning house. A firefighter suffered an ankle injury and two other people were sent to the hospital to treat burns according to Capt. Cameron Rossman, a spokesman for the Orange County Fire Authority.  

Eliott Simpson, the National Transportation Safety Board investigator, stated that the plane turned left after takeoff and began descending after 10 miles according to its radar. The main part of the plane fell behind someone’s house in a ravine. The wreck spans across four blocks and is set to be examined in a storage facility on Monday.  

Authorities are using Glenknoll Elementary as a command post, so the school will be closed on Monday. 

The plane had taken off at 1:35 pm from Fullerton Municipal Airport, according to NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson. A worker at Fullerton Airport Operations claimed that the pilot flew out of the airport frequently.  

Around 4 pm, the street near the crash was sectioned off with caution tape and filled with fire trucks. Additionally, news reporters flooded the area, all of whom were intent on capturing the destructive scene.

Nancy Mehl, one of the neighbors of the victims of the crash, described the crash as “a bomb went off through the front of the house” and she also stated that “One of the first things I did when I saw the damage was getting on my knees and thank God, talk about being spared.”