A small plane crashed into a commercial building in the US state of California on Thursday, killing at least two people and injuring 18 others, police said.
The accident took place in the early afternoon near the Fullerton Municipal Airport, 40 kilometers southeast of Los Angeles. The cause remains unknown.
“There are two confirmed deaths,” Fullerton police said in X. Additionally, 10 people were hospitalized and eight others were treated at the scene.
Investigators do not yet know if the dead were passengers on the plane or if they were workers at the building where it crashed, a police officer told the local station. KTLA.
Television images showed a huge hole in the roof of the building with smoke billowing.
“The only thing we hear is like a loud noise, boom, and that’s it. Then we started running out” of the building, said Jerome Cruz, one of the workers who witnessed the scene. CBS News.
The plane was a single-engine Van RV-10, a small model with four seats, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which has opened an investigation.
Another crash near the Fullerton airport injured two people in November.
Friday’s incident follows a series of aviation disasters last week. On December 29, at least 179 people were killed when a plane landed upside down and skidded off the runway, exploding into a fireball that crashed into a wall at South Korea’s Muan International Airport.
It was the worst plane crash involving a South Korean airline in nearly three decades and is on track to become the deadliest ever in the country, according to ministry data.
On the same day, a passenger plane flying from Norway to the Netherlands skidded off the runway during an emergency landing.
“Flight #KL1204, a Boeing 737-800, skidded off the right side of runway 18 after landing at Oslo Torp Sandefjord Airport. The flight was diverted there shortly after taking off from Oslo Airport (OSL),” according to a statement issued by Royal Dutch Airlines and published in X.
It said 176 passengers and six crew members on board were not injured, while an investigation has been launched into the incident.
Meanwhile, an Air Canada flight was forced to make an emergency landing at Halifax Stanfield International Airport after experiencing a malfunction in its landing gear on the night of December 28.
Air Canada Flight 2259, taking off from St. John’s International Airport, experienced landing problems at 01:30 GMT resulting in a skid and engine fire, prompting a rapid response from emergency crews to ensure the safety of everyone on board, several media outlets reported.
