Update: Palo Alto Plane Crash Kills Tesla Workers; Causes Widespread Power Outage Read more: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7017856018?Updat

Palo Alto, CA, United States (AHN) - The three passengers of a Cessna who died on Wednesday after their plane crashed into homes in East Palo Alto were employees of Tesla Motors. The crash also left homes and businesses in the northwestern city of California without power.

In a statement, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the victims were employees of his company. "We are withholding their identities as we work with the relevant authorities to notify the families. Our thoughts and prayers are with them. Tesla is a small, tightly-knit company, and this is a tragic day for us," he added.

Tesla the only automaker currently selling highway-capable electric cars.

The twin-engine aircraft had just left Palo Alto airport and was headed to Hawthorne Municipal Airport when it hit power lines and crashed into several homes. Fog has been attributed as a possible reason for the accident.

The city of Palo Alto said all of its 28,000 utility customers lost power. The outage caused Stanford Hospital and the Veterans' Administration Hospital to divert their emergency patients to El Camino Hospital, Valley Medical and Kaiser Santa Clara. The disruption also reportedly affected Facebook, which is headquartered in Palo Alto.

The city activated its emergency operations center and PG&E worked to restore its affected transmission tower in East Palo Alto. City utilities crews completely restored power early in the evening.