4 killed in plane crash at Southern California airport
Four people were killed when a small plane crashed at the Corona Municipal Airport in California, authorities said Wednesday. The local fire and police department responded to the airport at 12:11 p.m., CBS Los Angeles reported.
As the single-engine plane was taking off, the plane was unable to get airborne. The plane then crashed through a fence and hit a barrier to the east of the airport. The plane, carrying 80 gallons of fuel, then flipped over and caught on fire, causing a brush fire that officials later extinguished.
"He [the pilot] didn't pull back and he was too fast on the runways," pilot Dorothy Voll, who witnessed the crash, told CBS LA. "Then he flipped, and then everybody was running, and it started on fire, and then it had two explosions which probably were the fuel tanks."
Another pilot Walt Snyder, estimated the plane may have been traveling at 90 mph.
There was no immediate word on a cause or model of the plane. Both the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have been called in to investigate.
The airport was shut down as of 1:30 p.m.