Pilot dies in crash of single-engine plane in Simi Valley neighborhood

The pilot and sole occupant of a small, single-engine plane died when the aircraft crashed and ended up in the backyard of a home in California on Saturday, authorities said.

NBC Los Angeles aerial footage of the crash site in the city of Simi Valley, about 42 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, showed a body on the ground, though its connection to the incident was unconfirmed.

Simi Valley police said in a statement that the plane crashed shortly before 2 p.m. and ended up in a residential backyard, with no injuries reported on the ground.

The Ventura County Fire Department said the plane struck two homes, sparking fire, but residents inside each evacuated and were unharmed, with the fires extinguished and unspecified damage resulting.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the pilot was the only person on board the aircraft, which it said was a Van’s RV-10, a four-seat, single-engine plane shipped as a kit and intended to be assembled by customers.

The plane took off from the small airport in the city of Lancaster, a high desert community in Los Angeles County, en route to Camarillo Airport, which is about 20 miles west of Simi Valley, the FAA said in a statement. Both are noncommercial airports.

The crash site is in a hillside neighborhood of two-story houses, Wood Ranch, where the median listing is about $900,000. Video showed residents and first responders gathering near a hillside after the crash, with separate imagery showing smoke coming from the rooftop of a home.

The National Transportation Safety Board will lead an investigation into the cause of the crash, the FAA said.