UNIVERSITY CITY – Three people were killed when a Marine Corps fighter-bomber crashed on a residential street Monday, sparking fires that destroyed two homes and sent thick black smoke billowing through the neighborhood, prompting evacuations due to concerns about possibly toxic fumes.

The pilot, who had been trying to land the ailing plane at nearby Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, ejected safely moments before the crash, escaping with minor injuries. The jet crashed on Cather Avenue around noon.

Maurice Luque, a spokesman for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, said that three people on the ground were killed in a home on Cather Avenue near Huggins Street. Authorities are still trying to confirm their identities, Luque said.

The aircraft was a two-seat F/A-18D carrying a single pilot from Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 101, part of the Miramar-based 3rd Marine Air Wing, said Capt. Stephen Paap, a Marine Corps spokesman.

The student pilot was en route from the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, operating in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego, Paap said. He was taken to San Diego Naval Medical Center in Balboa Park.

Witness Dennis Connor, 50, said he was on a hill in the neighborhood when he saw the plane coming in at a 45-degree angle.

The jet hit the pavement on Cather Avenue near Huggins Street, just short of Rose Canyon open space and Interstate 805, he said. The impact sent debris flying between two houses, setting three of them on fire. He said two houses were destroyed by the flames and three more damaged.

“He was trying to get to the canyon,” Connor said. “He held on as long as could. At the last second, the pilot parachuted out.”

He said the plane, which had clipped treetops, was just seconds from the ground when the pilot ejected.

The plane was smashed into pieces, with a turbine from an engine the only part that Connor said he could distinguish. A box of electronics was left atop some shrubbery.

“Everything was just mangled aluminum,” Connor said.

Steve Diamond, a retired Naval aviator, witnessed the crash and went searching for the pilot who ejected.