Small plane crashes in street, bursts into flames in Hawthorne

A fiery airplane crash in Hawthorne early Friday morning left two people aboard the small aircraft critically injured.

At 12:37 a.m., the Los Angeles County Fire Department received a call that a single-engine aircraft had crashed on 126th Street, near the intersection of Hawthorne and El Segundo boulevards.

When emergency responders arrived, they determined that two people had been aboard the airplane and were critically injured, fire officials said.

A statement on the Federal Aviation Administration website identified the plane as a Piper PA-24.

Gerald Johnson, who said he was charging his electric vehicle near the crash site, told KTTV-TV that he and another man pulled one of the victims out of the wreckage.

The two people were taken to a nearby hospital. Neither was identified.

The plane crashed about two miles from Hawthorne Municipal Airport.

No one on the ground was injured and no buildings were damaged, authorities said.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .