- As Trump says Yemen raid was success; gathers vital intelligence
Three people were killed and two others injured when a small plane crashed and burst into flames in a residential area in California, officials said.
A married couple and three teenagers were on board the flight, which had just taken off from Riverside airport on Monday.
They were returning home to San Jose following a cheerleading event at the Disneyland theme park.
The identities of the victims have not been released.
Residents of the two homes hit by the plane have been accounted for.
One of the teenagers, a girl, was thrown from the back seat of the light aircraft but suffered only minor injuries, Riverside fire chief Michael Moore said.
“Upon impact, the plane pretty much split apart, and luckily she was ejected,” he said.
The girl managed to crawl to safety from the wreckage of the house and ask for help. She was later able to talk to firefighters about what had happened before she was taken to hospital, Mr Moore added.
One witness said that the plane’s wings were “nearly perpendicular to the ground” moments before it “went into a nosedive” and crashed into the two homes, AP news agency reports.
Firefighters pulled another passenger from one of the burning properties. The victim was unconscious and said to be in a San Bernardino hospital in critical condition.
Three bodies, all from the plane, were found in the wreckage of the aircraft and the homes.
The plane, which broke up on impact, was still burning several hours after the crash because of the fuel it was carrying.
In the meantime, U.S. President Donald Trump insisted on Tuesday that a January raid in Yemen was a success and gathered vital intelligence against the al Qaeda affiliate there, despite questions raised about the effectiveness of the mission.
In his first nationally televised speech to Congress since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump acknowledged in the audience the widow of U.S. Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens, who was killed in the operation. Tears streamed down her face as she rose and lawmakers gave her a standing ovation.
The White House has pushed back against criticism of the raid, the first of its kind authorized by Trump as commander in chief. Owens’ father, in a newspaper interview over the weekend, called for an investigation.
Owens, 36, was killed in the raid on a branch of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, in al Bayda province on Jan. 29. U.S. officials said 14 militants were killed as well as some civilians. Medics at the scene said about 30 people, including 10 women and children, died.
Addressing a joint session of Congress, Trump said he had just spoken with Defense Secretary Mike Mattis “who reconfirmed that, and I quote, ‘Ryan was a part of a highly successful raid that generated large amounts of vital intelligence that will lead to many more victories in the future against our enemies’.”
Though Trump provided no specifics, a senior U.S. official said earlier that the intelligence included the group’s explosives manufacturing, targeting, training and recruitment practices. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, stressed that such insight was particularly important given the threat that AQAP has long posed.
The group boasts one of the world’s most feared bomb makers, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, and AQAP has been a persistent concern to the U.S. government since a 2009 attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day.
The White House had initially insisted that questioning the success of the raid did a disservice to the Navy SEAL who was killed. This followed Senator John McCain’s comment suggesting that the mission was not a complete success because of Owens’ death as well as the loss of an aircraft used in the mission.
Trump, in an interview with Fox News that aired on Tuesday morning, resisted accepting responsibility for authorizing the mission. He said the Pentagon’s planning for the operation started under his predecessor, President Barack Obama, and was something the generals “were looking at for a long time doing.”
On Tuesday, Trump’s acknowledgment of Owens’ widow, Carryn Owens, in the audience drew the most sustained applause of the night.
“Ryan died as he lived – a warrior and a hero – battling against terrorism and securing our nation,” Trump said.
BBC with additional report from MSN
