FOUR KILLED AS AIRPLANE HITS OFFICES.

Byline: Associated Press

A single-engine plane crashed into the roof of a medical office complex shortly after takeoff Sunday morning, killing all four people aboard and setting the building on fire, authorities said.

Nobody on the ground was injured.

The four people were confirmed dead at the scene, city fire Capt. John Vosper said. Their identities were not immediately known.

The Beechcraft Sundowner was cleared for takeoff from the Torrance airport at 10:32 a.m. and crashed two minutes later, said Jerry Johnston, regional operations officer for the Federal Aviation Administration.

``An eyewitness reported the plane stalled on takeoff and went down quickly,'' he said.

The three-story building, which sits amid fountains and rows of trees, serves as office space for doctors, physical therapists and others but apparently was empty when the plane crashed, Vosper said.

At the nearby Torrance Memorial Medical Center, an administrative supervisor, Pam Hope, said those on one of the hospital's floors reported hearing a boom. Some employees looked out the windows and saw ``a lot of smoke billowing out of the building on the upper floors,'' she said.

The blaze was extinguished by 14 fire companies within a couple of hours, authorities said.

FAA and National Transportation and Safety Board investigators were trying to determine the cause of the crash.