3 dead as plane crashes in Tokyo residential area

A small plane crashed into a quiet neighborhood in Tokyo on Sunday, killing the pilot, a passenger and a woman on the ground, while three people were pulled alive from the wreckage, officials said.

The single-engine propeller plane plowed into and set ablaze a row of houses just minutes after takeoff from an airport used by small aircraft about 500 meters away in Tokyo's western suburb of Chofu.

Television footage showed a mangled plane, broken up with its tail upside down, resting on a crushed car in a residential lot as dozens of firefighters battled the blaze and treated the victims.