May 23, 2016 -- A single engine plane crashed at Santa Monica Airport early Sunday afternoon but no one was injured, the Fire Department said.

The pilot was the only person aboard the private craft when it crashed at the east end of the Santa Monica Airport Runway, said Administrative Captain Dale Hallock, the Department spokesman.

Four engines, a ladder truck, a Hazardous Materials Unit and a chief officer responded to the crash, which was reported at approximately 1:34 p.m, Hallock said.

"The first arriving unit found the aircraft on the end of the runway, fairly intact, with no ensuing fire," Hallock said in a statement issued Sunday. "The pilot was out, and uninjured."

Santa Monica Police Sgt. Erica Aklufi said the crash "wasn't a big incident.

"It wasn't so much a crash as a crash landing," she told the Lookout.

The National Transportation Safety Board was notified and is expected to send investigators to the scene, Haddock and Aklufi said.

Haddock said he did not have details but called it "unusual" for the plane to have ended up near the east end of the runway.

"The crews didn't have an explanation," he said.

Haddock noted that 95 percent of the time, planes take off from the east end of the runway near Bundy Drive and fly west.

The exceptions are when LAX reverses the pattern of its flights and Santa Monica Airport must follow suit, or when there is a strong east wind.

"Planes like to take off into the wind," he said, adding that he did not believe Santa Monica was experiencing such winds Sunday afternoon.

Aklufi also said it was unclear "which way the plane was headed."