Business jet with 6 on board hit power lines before fatal crash in San Diego neighborhood
By Chelsea Bailey, Aaron Cooper, Pete Muntean, Alaa Elassar, Stephanie Elam, Matthew J. Friedman, CNN
San Diego (CNN) — Hours after an aircraft slammed into a San Diego neighborhood Thursday, the smell of jet fuel remained thick in the air as investigators scoured the area for clues to uncover what caused the plane to crash, killing multiple people.
The business jet first hit a power line, then careened into homes in a San Diego military housing community just before 4 a.m. Thursday, authorities said. The debris field is at least a quarter mile long across the residential street, where jet fuel rained down, igniting several cars and damaging others as far as several blocks away from the main crash site.
Hours later, the sun rose over the charred ruins of a home badly damaged from the plane, which gouged a hole in the side of the house and collapsed its roof onto a car below.
Before crashing into the neighborhood, the aircraft hit power lines about two miles from nearby Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport, according to Eliott Simpson, a senior aviation accident investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is investigating the crash.
“There are fragments of the aircraft under the power lines,” Simpson told reporters Thursday afternoon.
Six people were on board the aircraft, according to an update from the Federal Aviation Administration. At least two people have died and eight others were injured, according to the San Diego Police Department.
All fatalities appear to be from the plane, San Diego Fire Assistant Chief Dan Eddy said during a press conference on Thursday, telling reporters that the exact number of fatalities is unclear but he doesn’t believe anyone on the aircraft survived the crash.
Among those killed in the crash was music booking agent David Shapiro, who represented some of the most well-known international hard rock, punk and indie bands, Billboard Magazine reported Thursday.
Shapiro owned the aircraft under a company named “Daviator LLC,” according to FAA records.
“We are devastated by the loss of our co-founder, colleagues and friends,” a spokesperson for Sound Talent Group, whose roster includes Hanson and Jefferson Starship, told Billboard. “Our hearts go out to their families and to everyone impacted by today’s tragedy. Thank you so much for respecting their privacy at this time.”
The home directly impacted by the plane had been occupied at the time of the crash, but neighbors helped the family evacuate, Eddy said at a news conference Thursday afternoon.
“For me it’s a little bit of a miracle,” he said. “I do know neighbors helped them get out and that’s the beauty of what I love in this neighborhood too,” Eddy added, “military looking out for one another.”
Scott Wahl, San Diego Police Chief, said he was still struggling to describe the scene his crews encountered when they arrived early Thursday morning.
“I can’t quite put words to describe what this scene looked like but with the jet fuel running down the streets and everything on fire all at once, it was pretty horrific to see,” he said during the press conference.
Why did a ‘reliable’ airplane go down?
The aircraft, a Cessna 550 airplane often called a Citation, crashed near Montgomery Executive Airport around 3:45 a.m. Thursday, the San Diego Fire Department told CNN. The private jet is commonly used for business travel and can carry eight to ten people.
Departing from Teterboro, New Jersey, Wednesday night at about 11:15 p.m., the plane made a fuel stop in Wichita, Kansas, before crashing, according to Simpson.
The NTSB will be spending Thursday and Friday on scene documenting the crash site, and plans to recover the airplane to a secure location on Saturday, Simpson said. This aircraft likely has a flight data recorder and possibly a cockpit voice recorder, he said.
A preliminary report will be published on the NTSB website in about two weeks and a final report will be released in about 12-18 months.
CNN aviation safety analyst David Soucie said he’s concerned because the Cessna Citation airplanes are generally considered “one of the most reliable airplanes.”
Although he’s awaiting FAA investigation findings – including whether fog could have played a role – Soucie said the presence of jet fuel on the ground would seem to indicate that the plane did not run out of gas.
He cautioned it could also take some time to determine how many people were onboard the aircraft.
“It is really difficult, considering the level of damage, I don’t want to get too morose about it, to actually identify how many people are on the aircraft,” he said. “So it may take a little while considering the damage to the airplane.”
Visibility was down to half a mile with low cloud ceilings around the time of the crash, weather observation data shows.
Jet fuel ‘took out every single car’
More than 10 homes were affected by the crash, Eddy said at the conference. “As the jet fuel went down, it took out every single car,” he said.
Video captured by a neighborhood resident who asked to remain anonymous shows flames engulfing vehicles lining both sides of the street shortly after the crash, as their car alarms blared.
The resident told CNN they were awakened by a loud boom and their house began shaking. The man ran outside to see the whole street ablaze and grabbed a hose to begin spraying down his yard, he said, then he decided to evacuate the area.
He told CNN he also helped police knock on his neighbors doors so they could evacuate.
Captain Robert Heely, Commanding Officer of Naval Base San Diego, said the neighborhood is “one of the largest military housing units in the world.”
“Certainly we have a lot of military families that are impacted,” Heely said, before adding his condolences to the families of those on board the plane.
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria vowed the city will continue to support those affected.
“They are part of a military community that makes up our city – proud partners of our community – and we will support them for as long as it takes to make sure that we get back to good here,” he said.
The San Diego Humane Society has taken in at least 12 pets affected by Thursday’s crash, including multiple dogs whose fur was doused in jet fuel.
A post on X shows the humane society’s medical team donned hazmat suits to decontaminate and wash off the animals.
Tracking the plane’s final moments
The pilot of the plane asked air traffic controllers about the weather at Montgomery Gibbs Field when they were descending at 9,000 feet, but the automated weather system at the airport was not working, air traffic control recordings show.
“The Montgomery ASOS is out of service,” the Southern California Approach controller told the pilot in audio recorded by LiveATC.net. The Automated Surface Observing System provides weather updates every minute, 24/7.
“I’ve got the Miramar automated weather,” the controller radioed the pilot and provided him the conditions from the Marine Corps Airfield – about 3 miles away. The controller reported poor conditions – visibility of a half mile and a cloud ceiling of 200 feet.
The pilot’s responses were not recorded by the website. The controller checked another airport which was “a little bit better but not much” before the plane proceeded to try and land at Montgomery Gibbs.
The pilot announced on the radio the plane was 3 miles away from a planned landing on Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport runway 28, according to a recording from the website LiveATC.net.
There was no sign of any problem, and no emergency was declared.
The airport has a control tower, but it is not staffed in the overnight hours, so pilots announce their intentions to any other pilots listening on the “common traffic advisory frequency.”
The Citation, according to FAA records, was built in 1985.
CNN’s Derek Van Dam, Monica Garrett, Alexandra Skores, Alaa Elassar , Taylor Galgano and Amanda Musa contributed to this report.
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