A retired Chicago police officer was piloting a small plane that broke apart shortly after takeoff in Yorba Linda, California, and crashed into a house, killing four people, officials said on Monday. The twin-engine Cessna 414 reached an altitude of about 7,800 feet (2,400 meters) before plummeting to the ground on Sunday at high speed, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigator Maja Smith said at a news conference. “A few witness reports say they saw the airplane coming out of a cloud at a very high speed before parts of the airplane such as tail and then subsequently wings started to break off,” Smith said.
