Little things made all the difference when a plane hit a San Diego home. 'We are alive'

Karen Kucher, The San Diego Union-Tribune on May 23, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

SAN DIEGO — When a private plane crashed into Ben McCarty’s Tierrasanta home early Thursday, little things made all the difference. Like where he parked his truck. And where his dogs went to bed.

McCarty, who works as a Navy gas turbine mechanic, lived with his family in military housing on the corner of Salmon Street and Sample Street in the Murphy Canyon area.

After a Cessna clipped a power line shortly after 3:40 a.m. and came barreling into the neighborhood, it slammed into McCarty’s 2017 Dodge Ram 1500 that he had parked on the side of his home.

His truck absorbed the initial impact and was propelled into his living room. All that remained was the burnt-out shell of the vehicle.

“If that truck hadn’t been there and that plane had gone straight into the house, it probably would have killed us,” McCarty said. He, his wife and two sons had all been asleep in the single-story home when the plane crashed.

A different decision helped save the family pets.

On Wednesday night, McCarty put his family’s two dogs — a lab-shepherd mix and a smaller terrier — into dog crates in the kitchen rather than letting them sleep out in the living room as he often did. That, too, was a serendipitous move.

“If they had been in the living room, they would have died,” he said.

McCarty recalled looking into the room from the hallway and seeing the “night sky” because the roof was gone. The room was filled with flames and debris.

His family was able to make it to the backyard, away from the fire, and neighbors came to help them escape over a fence to safety.

While McCarty feels lucky to be alive, he is worried about the future. The family lost both their vehicles to the fire and all of their belongings, including his Navy uniforms.

“We are alive, that’s a blessing. Everything else is replaceable — but I mean, like, it sucks. I know I owe more on the vehicles than they are worth… We didn’t have renter’s insurance, so I’m (out of luck) for all my furniture.”

While some people have offered to help out, McCarty doesn’t know if those offers will pan out, and he’s feeling stressed.

One thing he is sure of: He doesn’t want to return to Murphy Canyon.

While he and his sons, who are 2 and 4 years old, loved to spend time watching planes flying overhead, he’s not interested in pushing his luck by living under a flight path again.

“I feel like you’ve got a better chance of being in a plane crash than being hit on the ground by a plane crash. And then everyone lives through it?” he said. “It’s like, I don’t want to test fate so many times.”

_____