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SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- A Korean immigrant who lost his wife, two children and mother-in-law when a Marine Corps jet slammed into the family's house said Tuesday he did not blame the pilot, who ejected and survived.

"Please pray for him not to suffer from this accident," a distraught Dong Yun Yoon told reporters gathered near the site of Monday's crash of an F/A-18D jet in San Diego's University City community.

"He is one of our treasures for the country," Yoon said in accented English punctuated by long pauses while he tried to maintain his composure.

"I don't blame him. I don't have any hard feelings. I know he did everything he could," said Yoon, flanked by members of San Diego's Korean community, relatives and members from the family's church. Watch Yoon discuss relatives' death »

Authorities said four people died when the jet crashed into the Yoon family's house while the pilot was trying to reach nearby Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. Another, unoccupied house also was destroyed.

Yoon named the victims as his infant daughter Rachel, who was born less than two months ago; his 15-month-old daughter Grace; his wife, Young Mi Yoon, 36; and her 60-year-old mother, Suk Im Kim, who he said had come to the United States from Korea recently to help take care of the children.

Fighting back tears, he said of his daughters: "I cannot believe that they are not here right now."

"I know there are many people who have experienced more terrible things," Yoon said. "But, please, tell me how to do it. I don't know what to do."

Marine Corps authorities said the pilot, whose name was not released, was hospitalized after he parachuted from the jet, and an investigation into the cause of the crash has been launched.

The jet had just performed landing training on a Navy aircraft carrier before the pilot reported having trouble, according to the Marine Corps. Authorities described the jet as disabled.

Three bodies -- those of two adults and an infant -- were recovered hours after the crash on Monday. The fourth body -- that of a child -- was recovered Tuesday as firefighters sifted through the rubble of the Yoon house.

Authorities said they did not expect to find any other victims of the crash.

Yoon's minister, Daniel Shin, told reporters the Yoon family had moved into the house a little more than a month ago. He said Yoon came to the United States in 1989 and had since become a naturalized citizen. Yoon works as manager of "a variety store -- a store where they sell a variety of things," Shin said.

Yoon's wife came to the United States about four years ago, Shin said.

Yoon spoke softly when he talked about his wife.

"It was God's blessing that I met her about four years ago. She was a lovely wife and mother," he said.

His voice fading, he added: "She loves me and babies. I just miss her so much."

The Marine Corps said Tuesday it would take "a minimum of five to seven working days" to clean up the crash site.

San Diego resident Ian Lerner said he was heading to lunch at a shopping center about a half-mile from the neighborhood of about 20 homes when he saw the jet flying low.

"It was, oh, gosh, maybe a couple of hundred feet off the ground. And it was quiet; I think the engine was off," Lerner said.iReport.com: See Lerner's photos

"Then all of a sudden, we saw the canopy of the jet explode and go up, and then we saw the pilot blast out of the plane and the parachute open," Lerner said. Watch a witness describe the pilot's main concern »

Another witness said the jet was flying at a low altitude and "just spiraled, right out of [the movie] 'Top Gun.' "

A photograph taken at the crash site showed the pilot, after ejection, sitting on the front lawn, making a call on his cell phone before he was taken to a hospital. Watch burning debris near crash site »

The pilot was the only occupant of the two-seat aircraft, according to the Marine Corps.

The Union-Tribune spoke with Steve Diamond, a retired naval aviator who said he found the pilot in a tree behind a house. He told the paper he helped the man, who Diamond said was a lieutenant in his 20s, down from the tree. See satellite photo showing crash site, airfield »

The pilot told him that after he lost power in one engine, it was decided he would try to get the jet to Miramar on the single working engine, Diamond told the paper.

The pilot was in communication with military air traffic controllers before the jet crashed about two miles from the airfield, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the pilot ejected moments before the crash and landed in a tree. Jason Widmer said he talked to the pilot, who said he had tried to steer the jet from the homes and into a brushy canyon.

"He was pretty shook up and pretty concerned if he had killed anyone," Widmer told San Diego 6. "He had seen his bird go into a house."

A retired general, a pilot who has flown for 40 years and more than 270 missions in Vietnam, said the decision to eject is up to the pilot. F/A-18D planes are very dependable, but any aircraft is subject to error.

That model has two engines, and it can operate with one engine. But if one engine malfunctions, it's possible that a blade can break off and fly into the other engine, causing it to malfunction, too. If both engines are inoperable and the plane descends below 10,000 feet, it's likely the pilot will soon lose control.

When the pilot pulls a ring-like lever, a series of automatic actions is set off: The pilot's harness comes loose, and he is pushed through a canopy, which is rigged to facilitate him breaking through it without causing injury. A pilot can opt to manually activate his parachute, but if he doesn't, the parachute will open on a timer.

The plane would crash randomly once the pilot is no longer in control. See photos of fiery crash site »

Inside a house in the neighborhood, Robert Johnson sat in his living room with his daughter, Heather Certain, and her 2-year-old son, Nicholas, according to the Union-Tribune. They heard the explosion and then saw a giant fireball in the picture window facing their front yard, the newspaper reported. They ran out of the house. Watch aerial footage of crash site »

"The house shook like an earthquake," Johnson said. "I saw the flames right there in front of my house."

Unionized autoworkers are a favorite scapegoat for the problems facing U.S. automakers. Their job security guarantees and gold-plated benefits have surely cost General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler a bundle over the past few decades. Indeed, the domestics' historically high labor costs are among the reasons they haven't been able to compete with Japanese rivals, and why Detroit CEOs were back on Capitol Hill again Thursday asking for $34 billion in taxpayer loans to survive.

But the U.S. automakers probably would have collapsed by now if not for the concessions made by the United Auto Workers union over the past three years.

Once bitter enemies, the Detroit Three and the UAW have long since buried the hatchet and are now working together to close the wage gap with Toyota (nyse: TM - news - people ), Nissan (nasdaq: NSANY - news - people ) and Honda (nyse: HMC - news - people ) through various productivity improvements and more flexible work rules, for instance.

The union has made some major concessions. Two biggies last year: The UAW agreed to cap the cost of retiree health care through creation of an independent trust fund and agreed to cut wages in half, to $14 an hour, for new hires in non-assembly jobs (20% of the workforce). More concessions came this week when the union agreed to end a controversial "jobs bank" program, which pays workers even when there are no vehicles to build. The union also said it would allow car makers to extend their scheduled payments to the health care trust fund. Importantly, UAW President Ronald Gettelfinger also said the union is ready to renegotiate additional contract terms.

Now, the playing field is just about level--or will be once the economy recovers.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission Christopher Cox, and Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency James Lockhart II

Tune in to Anderson Cooper on CNN and watch as he counts down the "10 Most Wanted Culprits of the Collapse." Pick up the New York Post and read about FBI investigations of top financial firms under the headline "Fraud Street." With a bewildering and frightening financial crisis in full swing, the new national pastime is finding someone to blame.

As markets crash and retirement dreams fade away, media and the public are full of outrage at everyone from mortgage brokers and Wall Street CEOs to real estate investors to experts who failed to predict the crisis was coming. Congress hauls the most prominent executives before tough committee hearings, while political candidates blame each other. Pundits proffer lists of the mustache-twirling villains who caused the whole thing.

An Epic Whodunit

Investigators will undoubtedly uncover fraud, cheating, and other criminal behavior. But for now, there is no shortage of players who stand accused of having a hand in the crisis. It just depends on where you think the landslide began or who gave it the biggest push.

If you blame loosened financial regulations, maybe former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) or Securities & Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox are your men.

Think that a political push to boost homeownership handed too many people mortgages they couldn't afford? Why not single out Franklin Raines, former CEO of Fannie Mae?

Maybe you think the whole housing bubble could have been avoided with an interest rate increase (Alan Greenspan, step right up). Or, that folks should never have signed up for no-doc, interest-only loans, no matter how many silhouettes danced across their computer screen in a Web ad. In that case, the villain may be no further than your bathroom mirror.

(For a walk through some of those people who are blamed for having a hand in the meltdown, go to our slide show.)

"Whole System" at Fault

Of course, all of these people had something else in mind other than wrecking the U.S. economy. Some of them were making lots and lots of money—for themselves, of course, but also for their investors. Others truly believed in the virtue of freeing the marketplace's animal spirits from the cold hand of government regulation. And how many people were arguing against the virtues of homeownership?

Just the fact that one can assemble such a long list of possible villains gives a hint as to how many institutions, officials, and regular Americans made mistakes. "It's so difficult to pinpoint one person or two people," says Georgetown University finance professor Reena Aggarwal. "It really was the whole system."

Even Presidential candidates eager for votes have acknowledged there's no easy scapegoat. "Part of the reason this crisis occurred is that everyone was living beyond their means—from Wall Street to Washington to even some on Main Street," Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said on Oct. 13.

Indeed, it was a series of bad ideas, surprising linkages, and all-too-predictable blunders that came together to send the U.S. financial system, and then the entire world economy, into a serious credit crunch and global stock panic. That's not to say that it couldn't have been prevented.