Clouds cleared out along the San Diego coastline after a morning drizzle on Tuesday, March 26, 2024. Point Loma is seen in the foreground, along with San Diego Bay and Coronado. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune/TNS) (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune via TNS)
Authorities were investigating Monday after a small plane carrying six people crashed off the San Diego coast.
The twin-engine Cessna 414 crashed at around 12:30 p.m. Sunday, not long after it took off, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The plane was returning to Phoenix one day after flying out from Arizona, according to the flight tracking website Flightaware.com.
Searchers found a debris field later Sunday about 5 miles off the coast of Point Loma, a San Diego neighborhood that juts into the Pacific, U.S. Coast Guard officials. The water in the search area is about 200 feet deep.
The Coast Guard said in its initial news release Sunday that it was searching for the six people on board, whom it didn’t identify.
The plane is owned by vitamin and nutritional supplement maker Optimal Health Systems. The company, which is based in Pima, Arizona, didn’t immediately respond to a Monday request for comment.
The pilot told air traffic controllers that he was struggling to maintain his heading and climb as the plane twice turned towards shore before going back out to sea, according to audio posted by www.LiveATC.net and radar data posted by FlightAware. The controller urged the pilot to climb to 4,000 feet after he reported the plane was only about 1,000 feet in the air.
The controller directed the pilot to land at a nearby U.S. naval airport on Coronado Island, but the pilot said he was unable to see the airport. A short time later, the pilot repeatedly signaled the “Mayday” distress call before controllers lost radar contact.
A man who was out surfing when the plane crashed told NBC 7 in San Diego that he saw the plane come down at an angle, then climb back into the clouds before diving again and crashing into the water.
“The next time he came out of the clouds, he went straight into the water. But after I saw this splash, about six seconds later, it was dead silent. I knew that they went in the water, nose first, at a high speed,” Tyson Wislofsky said.
The crash comes weeks after a small Cessna crashed into a San Diego neighborhood in foggy weather and killed six people.
