Plane in Crash That Killed 3 Started Trip in Sacramento : Aviation: The aircraft that fell into a Granada Hills neighborhood was owned by a resident of a suburb near the state capital, records show.

A private plane that crashed in Granada Hills on Monday was bound for Van Nuys Airport from the Sacramento area when it went down in a residential neighborhood, instantly killing the two men and one woman on board, authorities said.

Coroner’s officials declined to name the victims until dental records can verify their identities, but a spokesman said Tuesday that the three apparently were from the Sacramento area. One of the men may have been related to the female victim.

No one on the ground was injured in the crash.

According to Federal Aviation Administration officials in Oklahoma City, the downed 1967 Beechcraft Baron belonged to a man from Carmichael, Calif., a suburb northeast of the state capital. The twin-engine, propeller-driven craft was registered just last month, indicating that it had only recently been purchased.

Workers on Tuesday continued to clear the twisted remnants of the plane from the crash scene--a storage shed behind a home at 17540 Kingsbury St. Aviation officials also examined wreckage to determine what sent the small craft plummeting into the plywood structure Monday afternoon, just minutes after the pilot called the Van Nuys Airport tower to report problems controlling the plane.

Scott Erickson, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator, said he was looking at the frame and components to try to determine why the plane crashed.

Initial accounts from witnesses on the ground and a pilot who was in the air at the time of the accident pointed to a possible power loss just before the plane crashed into the shed. A neighbor told The Times after the crash that he heard a motor quit before impact.

FAA safety inspector Michael K. Woodward said the general consensus among witnesses was that the plane appeared to be operating at less than full power when it hit. However, it appeared the plane had ample fuel, he added.

Although aviation officials have not yet been able to locate the downed craft’s flight plan, preliminary indications showed that it began its journey in the Sacramento area, stopping in San Jose before heading for Van Nuys, Woodward said.

The plane reached the Van Nuys area shortly before 5 p.m. Monday. The pilot apparently attempted to land at the airport, “but he was too high to get down,” Woodward said.

The pilot also relayed a distress call to the airport tower, saying he was experiencing control problems, but it was unclear whether the call came before or after the landing attempt.

The plane crashed after the pilot apparently doubled back to make a second approach to the airport, Woodward said.