'Five people dead' after 'small plane crashes' on Catalina Island off Southern California

Five people are dead after a small plane crashed on Catalina Island off Southern California , sheriff's department says.

The twin-engine Beechcraft 95 crashed shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday, just moments after it departed from Catalina Airport near the island town of Avalon, according to the Federal Aviation Administration .

Five people were on board, the FAA said. Five adults were found dead at the scene in rugged terrain about a mile (1.6 kilometers) west of the airport, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office said. The airfield is known as the Airport in the Sky because of its location at an elevation of 1,602 feet (488 meters) on the island about 25 miles (40 kilometers) off the coast of Los Angeles. It has a single, 3,000-foot (914-meter) runway.

• Three dead in Kentucky medical helicopter crash as aircraft plunged from sky during patient call-out
• Flight cut short after door falls off small plane and lands inches from South Carolina home

The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate. Records show the aircraft crashed "under unknown circumstances" when is was about a mile out from the airport. 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.