A twin-engine plane crashed shortly after taking off from Catalina Airport in Avalon Tuesday night, Oct. 8, killing all five people on board, authorities said.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies with the Avalon Station received a notification from a cellphone shortly after the crash, just past 8 p.m., stating possible injuries and giving the phone’s location about one mile west of the airport, sheriff’s officials said.
Deputies arrived at an area of rough, steep terrain along with Los Angeles County firefighters and found the wreckage, officials said.
All five people aboard the Beechcraft 95 airplane were found dead.
Avalon Search and Rescue and Avalon City Fire Department members also assisted in the search, sheriff’s officials said.
The Federal Administration Aviation and the National Transportation Safety Board were investigating. The FAA put out a preliminary report on Wednesday saying the plane crashed under unknown circumstances.
The plane was registered to a resident of West Hills in the San Fernando Valley, according to FAA records. He owned and operated a flight school at the Santa Monica Airport at one point.
FlightAware, a third-party flight-tracking website, shows the plane made an earlier flight from Santa Monica to Avalon, landing about 6:20 p.m.
The names of the plane’s occupants were not released by officials pending notification of relatives.
Catalina Airport, also known as Airport in the Sky because of its 1,600-foot elevation, has operating hours of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is generally closed to airplane operations outside of those times.
Other serious crashes have occurred on Catalina over the years.
In 2008, three people from Laguna Beach were killed and a fourth was injured when a single-engine Mooney M20j fell off the end of the runway after failing to take off.
The following year, three people, including a Dana Point pilot, were killed when a Beechcraft Bonanza crashed into a hillside after taking off from the airport. The pilot’s fiancée called authorities after the plane failed to arrive at John Wayne Airport.