The crash happened just before 11:00, shortly after the Piper Cherokee plane took off from the Livermore Municipal Airport. Nearby residents say the hills in the area were completely covered in clouds at the time of the crash.
Not much is known about the pilot except that they had been in contact with the Livermore Airport, and that about the same time the crash occurred, the airport lost contact with the single-engine aircraft.
"The clouds were down covering the hilltops," neighbor Lauren Devore told ABC7. "I mean, there was zero visibility on the hilltops."
Investigators combed the rural hills outside Livermore looking for clues into why the small airplane crashed. Devore said at the time of the crash, the clouds were so thick they covered up the hills. She heard the impact and immediately called 9-1-1.
"I heard the plane coming in, the engine sound, and then heard the sound of metal hitting something, and then no engine sounds," she recalled. "You know that's not good."
The Piper Cherokee plane is registered to a Belmont man. The FAA says the plane took off from the Livermore Municipal Airport and was headed to San Carlos. The plane appeared to clip a treetop before crashing in the crest of a hill. The identities of the man and woman killed have not been released.
"When I got there I saw that there were two bodies, both quite clearly dead, but I checked for pulses and breath anyway," said neighbor Rob Eimerl. "There was nothing. It looked like they'd been killed on impact. The plane had folded over and it had tumbled down the hill."
Eimerl and his father made a 10-minute run to the crash site and saw the wreckage scattered over a hill. The engine was still warm when they got there. They also found items belonging to a child including a kid's book. Investigators also located a diaper, but they determined that there was no child onboard.
