The twin-engine 1973 Cessna light plane, bound for John Wayne Airport in Orange County, had roughly a mile to go till the airport when it crashed on the parking lot in front of the Staples store.

Photos of the incident show the plane’s debris scattered among the palms that surround the parking space. A car can be seen parked mere meters from the wreckage.

Passersby immediately gathered at the sidewalk taking photos of the scene as firefighters were attending to the incident.

The incident took place around 12:30 pm local time, when malls and stores typically bustle with customers. Orange County Fire Authority spokesperson Tony Bommarito said it was a wonder that while the crew and passengers of the plane died on the spot, nobody got injured on the ground.

“This is a Sunday afternoon and we had people shopping so the fact that there were no injuries on the ground is a miracle in itself,” he said, as cited by the Los Angeles Times. 

It was a close call for at least one person, whose car got damaged in the incident. Luckily, the driver of the parked car was shopping inside the store when the plane descended on his vehicle, the spokesman said.

"Fortunately, that person was inside the store shopping at the time of the impact," he added.

The Federal Aviation Administration revealed that the pilot called an emergency before the plane crashed. Witnesses, meanwhile, say that it appeared that the pilot did not attempt to slow down or take another course as the aircraft was falling on the parking lot.

"It actually came down in front of us. We looked up and we just saw a plane fall. It lost control and it just fell straight down. It didn’t even look like it was trying to land,” Ella Pham told USA Today.

Authorities are still in the dark as to what was going on in the descending plane's cockpit.

“I don’t know anything about what this pilot did or what he was thinking, but it could have been much more tragic,” Bommarito said.

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