New Delhi, May 22 -- Several people on board are feared dead after a small private aircraft crashed into a San Diego housing neighbourhood early Thursday.

The Cessna 550 plane, which can carry 8 to 10 people, crashed just before 4 am into the US military's largest housing neighbourhood.

Due to the crash, at least 10 houses were gutted by fire or hit by debris and cars on both sides of a street were also caught fire.

San Diego's Assistant Fire Department Chief Dan Eddy said at a news conference: "There are more than one fatality that we found so far, but we're waiting to get the registered numbers that were on the plane itself."

"When it hit the street, as the jet fuel went down, it took out every single car that was on both sides of t...