A small plane crashed into a San Diego neighborhood early Thursday morning, sparking intense flames that scorched several homes, mangled dozens of vehicles and forced almost 100 people to evacuate.

Just before 8 a.m., fire officials confirmed that the only known fatalities from the crash were the private plane’s occupants. It still wasn’t clear how many people were on board, but San Diego Fire-Rescue Department Assistant Chief Dan Eddy said there were at least two.

The plane crashed into the Murphy Canyon neighborhood, a military housing community, just before 4 a.m. Thursday, Eddy said.

“Crews arrived on scene to find multiple homes and cars on fire,” Eddy said at a news conference. Crews have since been able to control the flames, but at least 10 homes were destroyed and a block of vehicles — at least a dozen, according to footage from the scene — were left completely mangled, he said.

Luckily, he said there have been no confirmed injuries or deaths among residents.

“The good news that I do have right now is that we have not transported anyone from scene so far,” Eddy said. However, he said crews were still completing additional searches of the homes in and around Sample Street.

“This is a worst-case scenario: a plane into homes off of a runway,” Eddy said. He said the crash left behind a “gigantic debris field.”

Footage from the scene showed a massive hole in the side of a single-family home, with nearby cars almost completely flattened. The street was filled with blackened debris and unrecognizable vehicles.

San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said almost 100 people have been displaced from the crash and the area remains closed for continued investigations and cleanup. He called the efforts of first responders, who ran into the fiery scene as jet fuel was flowed down the street, “heroic.”

The private plane originated in the Midwest and was headed to Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport, he said. The FAA identified the plane as a Cessna 550.

Eddy said the plane could hold eight to 10 passengers, but officials had not yet confirmed how many were on board. It’s wasn’t immediately clear from where it had taken off.

He said the National Transportation Safety Board was en route to investigate the crash.

©2025 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.