Witnesses: Plane came down in multiple pieces in California

YORBA LINDA (AP):

A former crash investigator said he’s confident officials will figure out why a small plane broke apart in the air over a Southern California neighbourhood, raining down chunks of metal and igniting a house fire that killed four people.

The pilot, a retired Chicago police officer living in Nevada, also died. Investigators on Tuesday planned to continue collecting pieces of the plane that fell into homes across about four blocks in Yorba Linda, a community southeast of Los Angeles.

Aircraft that break apart while flying leave ‘fingerprints’ – telltale signs – in the metal that will allow investigators to “build a sequence of the break-up that will lead them back to where it originated,” said John Cox, a former commercial pilot who’s head of the consulting firm Safety Operating Systems.

Witnesses described the plane coming out of the clouds in one piece, and “then they saw the tail breaking off and then the wing breaking off and then something like smoke before the airplane impacted the ground,” said Maja Smith, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board.

Those witnesses did not report an explosion while the twin-engine propeller-driven Cessna 414A was in the air, she said.

Pilot Antonio Pastini, 75, of Gardnerville, Nevada, was the only person aboard, Orange County Sheriff’s Lt Cory Martino said.

Authorities were trying to identify the people who died in the house, describing them only as two males and two females. Martino said DNA may be required because of the condition of the bodies.

The plane came down “in multiple pieces, about four or five pieces, with a long trail of smoke,” said Kyle Vanderheide, 25, who was driving when he spotted it overhead.

Shawn Winch, 49, said he was in his backyard when he heard what “sounded like a missile coming at my house”. He said he saw the plane veer off and debris falling.

“It wasn’t intact,” he said as the plane came toward the neighbourhood. “It was already breaking up.”