There is news arriving that there has been a deadly plane crash near East Palo Alto.

A small plane crashed this morning in a residential neighborhood in East Palo Alto, killing three people onboard, authorities said.

The plane crashed on the 1200 block of Beech Street near Pulgas Avenue about 7:55 a.m., said Lt. Ray Lunny of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department. A house on the street was damaged and the plane destroyed three cars, Lunny said, but there were no reports of injuries on the ground.

Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the plane was a twin-engine Cessna 310 that had taken off from Palo Alto Airport, about a mile to the southwest, and was bound for Hawthorne Municipal Airport in Los Angeles County.

FAA records show that the plane is registered to Air Unique Inc. of Santa Clara. It was manufactured in 1976.

Gregor said the cause of the crash was not known, but there were reports that the plane hit an electrical tower or wires on takeoff. There was also thick fog where the plane crashed.

Power outages were reported in the area. Palo Alto officials said major power outages were affecting the city and that residents were being asked to conserve water while power is out. Water transmission relies on electrical power and Palo Alto has limited reserves in the water system, city officials said.

Palo Alto’s electricity system is municipally owned. Joe Molica, a spokesman for Pacific Gas and Electric Co., said none of the utility’s customers was affected but that the crash had damaged three transmission lines that feed into Palo Alto’s system.

David Rages, who lives on the 1000 block of Beech Street about a block from the crash site, said he had heard a loud boom when the plane hit, then silence.

“At first I didn’t think anything of it,” Rages said. He walked down the block a short time later to where police and fire officials had blocked off the street and was able to see some dark smoke, but no fire through the fog.

Neighbors said the plane hit a family-owned day care center, but that no children were there at the time.

Small planes fly over the neighborhood all the time, Rages said, adding he’s always had a nagging fear of a plane going down nearby.

“I always worry about that,” he said.