Teenager among those killed when small plane crashes into California neighborhood

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Daniel Hernandez had been readying to go out for the evening when he heard what sounded like a loud blast in his Riverside neighborhood.

Looking out the window, he saw his next door neighbor's house engulfed in flames. He ran out and watched in shock as a man came running out.

A Cessna T310Q that had taken off from nearby Riverside Municipal Airport crashed on Rhonda Road on Monday, killing a man, woman and teenage girl and leaving two other women in critical condition.

'It's a tragedy,” 22-year-old Hernandez said, as he stood outside the yellow police tape that surrounded parts of his neighborhood Tuesday. 'I'm just so sorry for the lives that were lost.”

The crash occurred about 4:40 p.m., shortly after the plane had taken off from the airport.

Firefighters who rushed to the scene found one home fully engulfed in flames and another partially on fire. As they searched one of the homes, a fire captain heard moaning coming from inside a bedroom.

A woman who had been in the plane had been ejected and was covered in debris. Firefighters quickly dug into the debris to free her and passed her through a window to others waiting outside, said Riverside Fire Department Capt. Tyler Reynolds.

The woman survived, although 90 percent of her body is covered in third-degree burns, fire officials said. All of the dead and injured were occupants of the airplane.

'Life is our priority,” Reynolds said at a press conference late Tuesday morning. 'We have to put our firefighters' lives at risk when there are savable lives. ... That's what we did.”

Authorities have yet to publicly identify the plane's occupants.

The plane's five passengers were on their way back to San Jose after a cheerleading event in Anaheim, according to officials. Both survivors are in critical condition, Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback said.

The survivors were women in their late 30s or early 40s, authorities said.

The teenage victim possibly had family members onboard, Reynolds said. It's unconfirmed if the victims were members of the same family, he said.

Residents in the neighborhood helped to pull one of the survivors to a safe location, Reynolds said.

'I want to thank the community of this neighborhood for allowing the firefighters to get in, perform these rescues, protect life and protect property,” Reynolds said. 'Unfortunately, again, it was a tragic incident.”

Delmy Pennington, co-owner of the D&D Airport Cafe at the airport, said she had noticed the plane trying to take off Monday afternoon. At the time, she said, it was raining hard.

'It looked like the airplane didn't start right, something was wrong,” Pennington said. 'That's what I'm guessing.”

The group of five came back to the terminal and then later returned to the plane. After staying in the aircraft for a short time, they returned to the terminal once more and sat down at the cafe.

Pennington brought them menus and silverware and said she noticed that the sole man in the group was looking outside.

'He looked like he was worried, Pennington said. 'Thinking about what to do.”

Shortly after, the group left the terminal once more and returned to the airplane. It was not raining then and Pennington said she thought they might have only been waiting for the rain to stop.

Pennington went back to the window and watched as the airplane began taxiing. The back of the plane, she said, was shaking.

'It looked to me like it was hitting the floor,” Pennington said of the airplane's tail. She said she had never seen that happen before, even though she has watched 'thousands of airplanes” take off from the airport.

The plane went down about half a mile northeast of the airport, said Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration's Pacific Division.

Television footage showed heavy smoke and flames coming from the houses, which burned quickly as fuel from the Cessna's full tank caught fire. Debris was scattered across front lawns as far as half a mile away from the crash, Riverside Fire Chief Michael Moore said.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

Residents of the main house that caught fire were not home, Railsback said.

'There was actually one person in this first house ... at the time of the crash, and he was able to get out unharmed,” Railsback said during a news conference. 'Very remarkable that nobody else was injured. There are parts of this airplane that kind of spread out along the whole street.”

Four houses were damaged as a result of the crash, although only two are red-tagged.

Mark Scheck's home was one of those hit by the plane, although he said a neighbor's home appeared to take the brunt of the crash. Scheck, his wife and their three children were not home at the time.

Scheck had lived in his home about five years with his wife, 7-year-old sons and 10-year-old daughter. The family was accustomed to the planes that came and went from the nearby airport.

'I was more concerned about a train derailment, because we're right by the train tracks,” Scheck said. 'That's what I was more worried about, not a plane falling from the sky.”

Scheck and his family have been staying at his parents' home since. The family had two dogs and one cat that were inside the home. A GoFundMe page has been started to help raise funds for the family.

'What do you do for something like this? It just boggles my mind,” Scheck said. 'Who do you reach out to? I don't know what to do.”

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(Times staff writers Joseph Serna, Cindy Chang and Veronica Rocha contributed to this report.)