The single-engine propeller plane plowed into and set ablaze a row of houses just minutes after taking off from an airport used by small aircraft in Tokyo's western suburb of Chofu.
Television footage showed a mangled plane, broken up with its tail upside down, resting on a crushed car in a residential lot as dozens of firefighters battled the blaze and treated the victims.
The roofs of the two houses next to the site were also damaged.