SAN DIEGO (AP) — The weather alert system and runway lights weren’t working at a foggy San Diego airport where a private jet was planning to land before it crashed into a neighborhood, but the cause of the crash remains unclear, officials said Friday.
Dan Baker of the National Transportation Safety Board also said investigators haven’t determined a cause of Thursday's crash that likely killed all six people aboard.
Baker said the weather alert system at Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport was down at the time of the crash due to an unrelated power surge. He said the pilot instead got weather information from Marine Corps Air Station Miramar about 4 miles (6.44 kilometers) north, but he was aware of the fog.
The runway lights were also down.
The plane crashed about 2 miles (3.22 kilometers) from the airport.
Music talent agent Dave Shapiro, and two unnamed employees of the music agency he co-founded, Sound Talent Group, were among the dead along with the former drummer for metal band The Devil Wears Prada. Shapiro, 42, had a pilot’s license and was listed as the owner of the 1985 Cessna 550 Citation that plowed into the neighborhood of U.S. Navy housing shortly before 4 a.m. Thursday.
The crash added to a long list of aviation disasters this year. They include a midair collision that killed 67 people near Washington, D.C., in January, an airliner that clipped another plane in February while taxiing at the Seattle airport and a sightseeing helicopter that broke apart and crashed into the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey last month, killing six people.
Federal officials have tried to reassure travelers that flying is the safest mode of transportation, which statistics support. But a cascade of aviation mishaps has drawing increasing attention.
Shapiro's aircraft was trying to land in foggy weather at Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport when it struck power lines about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) southeast of the airfield, Elliot Simpson of the National Transportation Safety Board.
The flight took off from Teterboro, New Jersey, near Manhattan, at about 11:15 p.m. Wednesday and made a fuel stop in Wichita, Kansas, before continuing on to San Diego. That overnight schedule wouldn't be allowed for an airliner under federal crew rest rules, but those regulations don't apply to private planes.
Former NTSB and FAA crash investigator Jeff Guzzetti said he thinks the dense fog and fatigue after Shapiro flew all night long were likely factors in the crash.
“This accident has all the earmarks of a classic attempt to approach an airport in really bad weather and poor visibility,” Guzzetti said. “And there were other airports that the crew could have gone to.”
Fragments of the plane were found under power lines that are about a half block from the homes. It then lost a wing on the road directly behind the homes. Guzzetti said even if the plane had missed the power lines it may have still crashed because it was coming in too low in the fog.
A terrifying wakeup
The crash site shows more damage on the front side of those homes, including a smashed stone landscaping wall and an incinerated truck that was parked across the street and shoved into the living room of its owner's home before catching fire.
Ben McCarty and his wife, who live in the home that was hit, said they felt heat all around them after being woken up by an explosion.
“All I could see was fire. The roof of the house was still on fire. You could see the night sky from our living room,” McCarty, who has served in the Navy for 13 years, told local ABC affiliate KGTV.
Flames blocked many of the exits so they grabbed their children and dogs and ran out the back but the burning debris blocked the gate so neighbors helped them climb over the fence to escape.
“We got the kids over the fence and then I jumped over the fence. They brought a ladder and we got the dogs,” McCarty said.
Meanwhile, fiery jet fuel rolled down the block igniting everything in its path from trees to plastic trash containers to car after car.
McCarty's home was the only one destroyed, though another 10 residences suffered damage, authorities said. Eight residents were taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation and injuries that were not life-threatening, including a person who was hurt climbing out a window, police officer Anthony Carrasco said.
McCarty said his family used to enjoy living under the flight path so they could watch the planes pass overhead.
“Us and our kids would sit on our front porch and we’d look up and my sons would always be excited saying ‘plane plane’ watching the planes go by and ironically right where we were sitting is where that plane hit,” McCarty said.
Now, he wants to move.
"I’m not going to live over that flight line again — it’s going to be hard to sleep at night,” McCarty said.
It could have been much worse
NTSB investigators are gathering evidence to determine what happened.
“Given it happened in a densely populated suburban area and the time of day when most people are asleep at home, it is surprising there were no deaths on the ground," Rod Sullivan, a transportation expert, said.
But Guzzetti said in his experience there often aren’t deaths on the ground when a plane crashes in a residential area unless people are right where the plane hits.
The crash of a medical transport flight into a Philadelphia neighborhood in January shows what can happen when there is a direct hit in a populated area. Two people on the ground died and about two dozen others were hurt when that plane slammed into the ground and caught fire. Six people abord that plane also died.
At least 100 residents in the San Diego neighborhood were evacuated and officials said it was unclear when it would be safe for people to return. On Friday, some residents were escorted back to their homes to get essentials, like their military IDs to get back on bases after they left them in the rush to escape.
Thursday's crash comes only weeks after a similar one in Southern California.
A small plane crashed into a neighborhood in Simi Valley on May 3 killing both people and a dog aboard the aircraft and igniting two homes, but no one was reported hurt on the ground despite residents being inside the residences at the time. The community is located nearly 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles.
In October 2021 a twin-engine plane plowed into a San Diego suburb, killing the pilot and a UPS delivery driver on the ground and burning homes.
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Funk contributed to this report from Omaha, Nebraska.
Julie Watson And Josh Funk, The Associated Press
