A devastating aircraft accident off the coast of Southern California, close to Catalina Island, has led to the unfortunate deaths of all five individuals on board. The incident involved a twin-engine Beechcraft 95 aircraft, accommodating four passengers and the pilot. The incident occurred on the evening of Tuesday, October 8, 2024, soon after departure from Catalina Airport. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reports that the crash took place around 8 p.m., roughly a mile from the airport.
Four of the five casualties were initially identified by authorities. These included the aircraft’s pilot and registered owner, Ali Reza Safai, 73, Haris Ali, 33, Margaret Mary Fenner, 55, and Gonzalo Lubel, 34. Joeun Park, 37, was identified later by the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner.
The ill-starred aircraft embarked on its journey from Santa Monica Airport, California at 5:57 p.m., reaching Catalina around 6:20 p.m. Records show that the plane started its return trip, but contact was lost with radar shortly following its departure.
Emergency services reached the crash site around 8:30 p.m., responding to an emergency SOS notification sent from a cell phone belonging to one of the passengers. The crash site was located a mile west of the island’s airport.
Ali Reza Safai, the pilot, was also a flight instructor at Proteus Flight School in Santa Monica, California. Sources from KTLA revealed that Safai had embarked on the trip to aid two Proteus Flight School pilots stranded on the island due to mechanical problems.
According to an airport official, the pilot did not seek permission for takeoff. The airport ceases operations each day at 5 p.m., but pilots can arrange with management for arrivals and departures before sunset, as stated by the airport’s general manager, Carl True, in an interview with the Orange County Register on Thursday. True clarified that the pilot had scheduled the arrival, but not the departure, and he was informed of this. The airport does not permit flights after dark due to the absence of necessary facilities for nighttime activity. True emphasized that although the pilot did not obtain permission, the departure was not considered illegal.
The airport, known as the Airport in the Sky due to its precarious location at a height of 1,602 feet on the island, is roughly 25 miles from Los Angeles. It has one runway, which measures 3,000 feet.
In recent years, Catalina has been the site of several significant aviation accidents. In 2002, a plane collided with a hillside on the island, leading to five deaths. Officials attributed the crash to low visibility, light rain, and fog, causing the pilot to miss the runway at Catalina’s Airport in the Sky during the initial landing attempt.
In 2008, a sightseeing helicopter crashed near Two Harbors, resulting in three fatalities and three injuries, two of them critical. The following year witnessed another tragic incident when three individuals lost their lives in a crash during rainy weather conditions on a tour airplane.
