A small plane crashed in dense fog in a Murphy Canyon neighborhood early Thursday morning, killing at least two people on the plane and burning several cars and homes in a neighborhood of military families.
The plane, a Cessna 550, crashed east of Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport around 3:45 a.m., according the Federal Aviation Administration. Officials were not immediately able to say how many people were onboard the Cessna, which holds eight to 10 people.
“From what we found so far on scene, we do believe we have multiple fatalities,” San Diego Fire-Rescue Department Assistant Chief Dan Eddy said during a news conference.
He said no one on the ground was seriously injured, although officials later said one person from an evacuation site was taken to a hospital after she reported an injury. Two others were treated and released.
Authorities work the scene where a small plane crashed into a San Diego neighborhood, setting several homes on fire and forcing evacuations along several blocks early Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
More than 10 homes caught fire, as did several cars. Several large oil spills were seen in the road and the smell of jet fuel hung in the air hours after the crash in the area of Sculpin Street and Santo Road, southeast of Interstate 15 and Aero Drive.
“When it hit the street, as the jet fuel went down, it took out every single car that was on both sides of the street,” Eddy said. “You can see that every single car was burning down both sides of the street.”
San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said about 50 officers were on the scene within minutes.
“I can’t quite put words to describe what this scene looks like, but with the jet fuel going down the street and everything on fire all at once, it was pretty horrific to see the police officers and firefighters to run in there start trying to evacuate people out of the way,” Wahl said. “Doing anything and everything they could to try to save somebody’s life is really heroic.”
About 100 residents were evacuated to nearby Miller Elementary school, which was closed Thursday to serve as an evacuation and daycare site. Hancock Elementary was also closed, a San Diego Unified School District spokesperson said.
The neighborhood is military housing. San Diego Naval Base commander Capt. Robert Healy said the “foremost concern right now is to make sure that we have the safety of our families who reside in the neighborhood.”
Thick fog blanketed the area, creating only about a half-mile of visibility at the time of the crash, according to the National Weather Service. “You could barely see in front of you,” the assistant fire chief said.
Montgomery Field did not file a weather report Thursday morning. The automated weather observation report that pilots can tune into over the air traffic control frequency was “missing” or “not available,” according to radio traffic.
The plane is registered to a limited liability company out of Homer, Alaska, according to the FAA registry. The plane departed from Teterboro, N.J., on Wednesday, then stopped in Wichita, Kan., before departing on the three-hour flight to San Diego, according to Flightaware.com. Records show the plane had flown into Montgomery earlier this month.
Eddy said the crash left “a gigantic debris field” in the densely packed neighborhood. He said all the fires were doused within a few hours, save for “one stubborn car fire that will not go out.”
A San Diego Fire Deparment Hazardous Material crew surveys the scene area after a small plane crashed early Thursday morning in the Murphy Canyon area, setting several of the homes on fire and forcing evacuations along several blocks. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
A loud noise that sounded like a jet, followed by a big boom jarred area resident Gilbert Gonzalez from sleep. His Salmon Street house shook. His wife told him she saw a flash.
He was five houses from the crash site.
Gonzalez quickly dressed, slipped on flip-flops and ran outside. “You could see the entire strip of flames across the street,” he said.
Gonzalez, who works as a Navy damage controlman or firefighter on the USS Essex, saw neighbors using garden hoses trying to fight the fire..
He said the house that was directly hit by the plane “was just demolished.” He and others went to help a family in a neighboring home, draping his ladder over a back fence to provide the family an exit route.
Someone handed him two small children. He carried them to a nearby home, then returned to help their mother over the fence. He also helped get the family dogs to safety.
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“It is unreal,” he said a short time later in a nearby Navy Exchange parking lot. “We are in the flight line of this airport. We see these things coming over our houses every day. And you think about it — what if it just dropped one day. Never thought it would actually happen this way.”
Some residents who evacuated from their homes, many still clad in pajamas, gathered in the NEX parking lot early Thursday, where they were approached by volunteers and people offering water and food and diapers and other supplies.
Christopher Moore, who lives one street over from the crash site, said he and his wife were awakened by a loud bang and saw smoke when they looked out the window.
They grabbed their two young children and ran out of the house. On their way out of the neighborhood, they saw a car engulfed in flames.
“It was definitely horrifying for sure, but sometimes you’ve just got to drop your head and get to safety,” he said.
Before his alarm went off at 5:30 a.m., Austin Lariccia’s cell phone was flooded with text messages from friends and coworkers asking if he was OK. What happened, he asked. Headlines indicated a plane crash in San Diego.
As soon as he read that the small aircraft had crashed in his Murphy Canyon neighborhood he rushed to the front door of his home along Taussig Street and found a row of burned, parked vehicles from the aftermath. A couple hours before, a river of flames illuminated Sample Street, facing Lariccia’s house.
“Once I read the article, I was like, Oh, that’s like right in my front yard,” he said. “This car was still on fire. You see on the news all the plane crashes happening and then you see so many planes flying over us and wonder if that’s gonna happen here, you know.”
Lisa Monroe lives east of Canyon View South. She and her husband heard numerous sirens around 4 a.m.
She quickly moved through rows of vehicles parked at the Navy Exchange gas station on Santo Road and Gurnard Street. She was spreading the word to families that had evacuated that food and shelter was available at Miller Elementary. A few families, many with children and pets, who weren’t sure when they’d be able to return to their homes agreed to stop by.
“As soon as we learned what had happened, my husband and I, we started gathering food and water for folks,” she said. “All the teachers and everyone are helping out, coming together to help.”
The San Diego Humane Society has teams of its law enforcement officers responding to calls for pets who need to be rescued from homes or may need medical attention.
One call was from a person who needed help with five puppies and three adult dogs, with an unknown owner, said Humane Society spokesperson Nina Thompson.
In October 2021, two people were killed and two others injured when a small plane crashed in a residential neighborhood in Santee, destroying two homes and a UPS delivery truck. It was headed to land at Montgomery Field.
Staff writer Gary Robbins and the Associated Press contributed to this report.