Five people have been reported killed after a small plane crashed on Catalina Island, near Los Angeles, on Tuesday night.
Crews with the L.A. County Fire and the Avalon Sheriff’s departments began their search just before 8:30 p.m. at El Rancho Escondido Reservoir Road on Catalina, officials confirmed to KTLA.
The crash happened shortly after take off from Catalina Airport. The twin-engine Beechcraft 95 went down in steep terrain around 8 pm about one mile west of the island's airport. The Los Angeles County Sheriff - Avalon Station says it received a 911 SOS emergency notification stating its user may have been involved in a collision with possible injuries.
The device provided GPS coordinates and when rescuers located the wreckage, they confirmed five adults had died. The identities of the victims have not been released. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the deadly crash.
Firefighters stopped searching for survivors during the night due to the darkness but did find a debris field. The airport is known as the Airport in the Sky because of its location at an elevation of 1,602 feet. It has a single, 3,000-foot runway.
In 2016, a small plane with two people aboard crashed just short of the runway as it tried to land at the Catalina airport. Fire crews responded to the accident and confirmed that the two people survived the crash. The Los Angeles County Fire Department deployed two helicopters to assist in the rescue.
One person was ejected during the crash near Airport in the Sky, supervising fire dispatcher Ed Pickett told the Los Angeles Times. A second person, who was trapped under the plane, was later rescued and both victims were taken to a hospital via helicopter, said Kyle Sanford of the fire department.
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The LAFD said they were both taken by helicopter to a Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Information regarding the extent of their injuries hasn't been released. The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane is a Cessna 172.
FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said the plane that had taken off from Long Beach Airport crashed under unknown circumstances at about 4.30pm Sunday. The Island is one of California's Channel Islands and is located 21 miles southwest of Los Angeles.
On average, the island is inhabited by 5,500 full-time residents. Data from FlightAware, which is an aircraft tracking website, shows the same aircraft took flight from a Santa Monica Airport earlier that same evening at 5:57 p.m. The plane appeared to have landed safely at Catalina Airport 20 minutes later at 6:20 p.m.
The plane later took off from Avalon's airport runway but quickly disappeared from the radar, according to online logs. Fire and rescue units later responded to the deadly plane crash at about 8:30 p.m., according to the Los Angeles County Fire and the Avalon Sheriff's Station, which is run by the LA County Sheriff's Department.
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