Three people died when a single-engine plane crashed near a mountain airport in California.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported that the Beechcraft A36 went down around 2 pm on Monday, May 1, near Big Bear City Airport. Although the plane struck a vacant lot, there was no fire reported. The Big Bear Fire Department confirmed the fatalities of all three occupants on board.
At this time, investigators have not released the victims’ identities and are looking into the cause of the crash. Weather reports indicate that it was partly cloudy at the time of the crash.
Big Bear Airport is located near Big Bear Lake, a popular resort area about two hours from Los Angeles.
This is the second fatal small plane crash in three days in Southern California. On Saturday, April 29, a single-engine Cessna C172 hit a hillside above a Los Angeles neighborhood due to dense fog, resulting in one fatality.
Joubin Solemani, a resident of the upscale Beverly Crest area, shared his experience of hearing a loud crash while at home with his family on Saturday. Search-and-rescue teams were deployed to the hillside, and after several hours of challenging search efforts in darkness and dense fog, they discovered the wreckage and found the pilot deceased. The pilot, identified as 38-year-old Alon Inditzky, was the plane’s only occupant.
Solemani described the mangled state of the plane visible from his property in the Santa Monica Mountains when daylight broke on Sunday.
The fire department later recovered the pilot’s body on Sunday afternoon. Remarkably, the plane avoided all power lines and a water tank, and only a minor fire occurred.
An air traffic controller reported the plane missing when she lost contact with the plane on its way to Van Nuys Airport.
The FAA and the NTSB are investigating both crashes.
