A private plane carrying three employees of electric car maker Tesla Motors Inc., crashed this morning in a residential East Palo Alto neighborhood, killing all those aboard and damaging several local homes. Shortly after taking off from Palo Alto Airport at 7:55 am PT, the twin-engine plane went down in thick fog, hitting a PG&E tower near the Dumbarton Bridge. Nobody on the ground was injured.

The plane was a Cessna 310, registered to a company owned by Tesla's senior electrical engineer, Doug Bourn. Though the names of the passengers are being withheld at the moment, early speculation is that all three were Tesla executives. CEO Elon Musk, who was not involved in the crash, released a statement shortly after. “Tesla is a small, tightly-knit company” said Musk. “This is a tragic day for us."

The crash comes just a month after the company filed papers with the SEC in anticipation of a $100 million initial public offering.