A twin-engine plane that killed at least two people and left a swath of destruction in a San Diego suburb nose-dived into the ground after repeated warnings that it was flying dangerously low, according to a recording. The Cessna 340 smashed into a UPS van, killing the driver, and then hit houses just after noon Monday in Santee, a suburb of 50,000 people. The pilot also is believed to have died, and at least two people on the ground were hurt, including a woman who was helped out the window of a burning home by neighbors. An investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board was expected to be at the scene Tuesday morning, according to an agency tweet. Read: Light aircraft crashes in Russia The plane was heading in to land at Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport in San Diego when it crashed. Shortly before, when the plane was about a half-mile from the runway, an air traffic controller alerted the pilot that the aircraft was too low. “Low altitude alert, climb immediately, climb the airplane,” the controller tells the pilot in audio obtained by KSWB-TV. The controller repeatedly urges the plane to climb to 5,000 feet, and when it remains at 1,500 feet warns: “You appear to be descending again, sir.” KGTV-TV, an ABC affiliate, posted video the station said it received from a viewer showing the plane arcing in the sky and then plunging into the neighborhood in a burst of flames. The plane was owned by Dr. Sugata Das, who may have been piloting the aircraft and died in the crash. He worked at Yuma Regional Medical Center in Arizona, the hospital's chief medical officer said. Das, a licensed pilot, lived in San Diego and commuted back and forth to Yuba, according to a website for a non-profit organization he served as director. He leaves two young sons. United Parcel Service of America Inc. confirmed one of its workers died, although the employee's name wasn't immediately released. Read: Tourist helicopter crashes in Russian crater lake; 8 missing People a block away from the scene said their homes shook from the thunderous crash. Neighbors ran to help and helped rescue a couple believed to be in their 70s from one burning home. Michael Keeley, 43, ran barefoot outside and saw flames engulfing the UPS truck and a home on the corner. He joined two neighbors at the burning home in calling through an open window. With thick smoke inside the home and flames licking the roof, Keeley reached through the window to grab a woman’s arm and help her climb out. Her forearms were burned, and her hair was singed, he said. “I’m glad I didn’t have to go inside with my bare feet,” said Keeley, a probation officer. At the same time, other neighbors knocked down the couple’s fence to rescue the woman’s husband from the backyard. Keeley said after the couple escaped to the sidewalk, the woman pleaded for help for her dog that was believed to be inside the home. “She kept saying, ‘My puppy, my puppy,’ ” he said. Read:28 feared dead in plane crash in Russia’s Far East But moments later, there were explosions inside the home. The group helped the couple walk a safe distance away until paramedics arrived. Andrew Pelloth, 30, lives across the street from the couple and was working from home when he heard a whirring and then a huge boom. “My initial thought was that it was a meteorite coming down,” he said. “I could hear it falling, and then some kind of explosion.” Pelloth looked outside and saw the UPS truck on fire. He grabbed a fire extinguisher and then joined other neighbors who pulled the boards off the couple’s fence to rescue the woman’s husband. Erik Huppert, 57, who ran down to help after his house shook, said he saw the man walking in the backyard after they pulled off the boards. “Both were definitely in shock, but at least they were alive,” said Huppert, a military contractor. No one was home at the other house that was destroyed, which sold only a month ago, Pelloth said.

A team of investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board was at the site of an Amtrak derailment in north-central Montana that killed three people and left seven hospitalized Sunday, officials said. The westbound Empire Builder was en route from Chicago to Seattle when it left the tracks about 4 p.m. Saturday near Joplin, a town of about 200. Trevor Fossen was first on the scene. The Joplin resident was on a dirt road nearing the tracks Saturday when he saw “a wall of dust” about 300 feet high. “I started looking at that, wondering what it was and then I saw the train had tipped over and derailed,” said Fossen, who called 911 and started trying to get people out. He called his brother to bring ladders for people who couldn’t get down after exiting through the windows of cars resting on their sides. The train was carrying about 141 passengers and 16 crew members and had two locomotives and 10 cars, eight of which derailed, Amtrak spokesman Jason Abrams said. A 14-member team including investigators and specialists in railroad signals would look into the cause of the derailment on a BNSF Railway main track that involved no other trains or equipment, said NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss. Read:Sheriff’s office: At least 3 killed in Amtrak derailment Law enforcement said the officials from the NTSB, Amtrak and BNSF had arrived at the accident scene just west of Joplin, where the tracks cut through vast, golden brown wheat fields that were recently harvested. Several large cranes were brought to the tracks that run roughly parallel to U.S. Highway 2, along with a truckload of gravel and new railroad ties. Several rail cars could still be seen on their sides. The accident scene is about 150 miles (241 kilometers) northeast of Helena and about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the Canadian border. Amtrak CEO Bill Flynn expressed condolences to those who lost loved ones and said the company is working with the NTSB, Federal Railroad Administration and local law enforcement, sharing their “sense of urgency” to determine what happened. “The NTSB will identify the cause or causes of this accident, and Amtrak commits to taking appropriate actions to prevent a similar accident in the future,” Flynn said in the statement. Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte said BNSF was readying replacement track for when the NTSB gives the go-head. “BNSF has assured me they can get the line up and running in short order,” he said. Railroad safety expert David Clarke, director of the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Tennessee, said accident scene photos show the derailment occurred at or near a switch, which is where the railway goes from a single track to a double track. Clarke said the two locomotives and two cars at the front of the train reached the split and continued on the main track, but the remaining eight cars derailed. He said it was unclear if some of the last cars moved onto the second track. “Did the switch play some role? It might have been that the front of the train hit the switch and it started fish-tailing and that flipped the back part of the train,” Clarke said. Another possibility was a defect in the rail, Clarke said, noting that regular testing doesn’t always catch such problems. He said speed was not a likely factor because trains on that line have systems that prevent excessive speeds and collisions. Read:Trudeau's Liberals win Canada election, but miss majority Matt Jones, a BNSF Railway spokesman said at a news conference that the track where the accident occurred was last inspected Thursday. Because of the derailment, Sunday’s westbound Empire Builder from Chicago will terminate in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the eastbound train will originate in Minnesota. Most of those on the train were treated and released for their injuries, but five who were more seriously hurt remained at the Benefis Health System hospital in Great Falls, Montana, said Sarah Robbin, Liberty County emergency services coordinator. Two were in the intensive care unit, a hospital spokeswoman said. Another two people were at Logan Health, a hospital in Kalispell, Montana, spokeswoman Melody Sharpton said. Robbin said emergency crews struggled without success to cut open cars with special tools, “so they did have to manually carry out many of the passengers that could not walk.” Liberty County Sheriff Nick Erickson said the names of the dead would not be released until relatives are notified. Robbin said nearby residents rushed to offer help when the derailment occurred. “We are so fortunate to live where we do, where neighbors help neighbors,” she said. “The locals have been so amazing and accommodating,” passenger Jacob Cordeiro said on Twitter. “They provided us with food, drinks, and wonderful hospitality. Nothing like it when the best comes together after a tragedy.” Cordeiro, who is from Rhode Island, just graduated from college and was traveling with his father to Seattle to celebrate. Read:Canada begins allowing vaccinated US citizens to visit again “I was in one of the front cars and we got badly jostled, thrown from one side of the train to the other,” he told MSNBC. He said the car left the tracks, but did not fall over. “I’m a pretty big guy and it picked me up from my chair and threw me into one wall and then threw me into the other wall,” Cordeiro said. Chester Councilwoman Rachel Ghekiere said she and others helped about 50 to 60 passengers who were brought to a school..” A grocery store in Chester, about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the derailment, and a nearby religious community provided food, she said. Allan Zarembski, director of the University of Delaware’s Railway Engineering and Safety Program, said he didn’t want to speculate but suspected the derailment stemmed from an issue with the train track, equipment, or both. Railways have “virtually eliminated” major derailments by human error after the implementation of positive train control nationwide, Zarembski said. He said NTSB findings could take months. Bob Chipkevich, who oversaw railroad crash investigations for several years at the NTSB, said the agency won’t rule out human error or any other potential causes for now. “There are still human performance issues examined by NTSB to be sure that people doing the work are qualified and rested and doing it properly,” Chipkevich said. Chipkevich said track conditions have historically been a significant cause of train accidents and noted most of the track Amtrak uses is owned by freight railroads and must depend on those companies for safety maintenance.

The pilot of the helicopter that crashed near Los Angeles, killing former NBA superstar Kobe Bryant and eight others, told air traffic controllers in his last radio message that he was climbing to avoid a cloud layer before plunging more than 1,000 feet (305 meters) into a hillside, an accident investigator said.