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SAN DIEGO — A private jet flying in dense fog crashed into a San Diego neighborhood early Thursday morning, killing at least three and sparking intense flames that scorched several homes, mangled dozens of vehicles
and forced almost 100 people to evacuate.

The only people known to have died in the crash were aboard the
aircraft, which appeared to have struck power lines before crashing into
a home, according to federal officials.

The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed Thursday afternoon that
six people were on board the plane. At an earlier news conference, San
Diego Fire-Rescue Department Assistant Chief Dan Eddy said he did not
believe any occupants of the aircraft survived.

A spokesperson for Sound Talent Group, a San Diego County-based music
agency, confirmed to The Times that the company lost three employees in
the crash, including Dave Shapiro, the group’s co-founder. The other employees were not named.

“We are devastated by the loss of our co-founder, colleagues and
friends,” read a company statement. “Our hearts go out to their families and to everyone impacted by today’s tragedy. Thank you so much for
respecting their privacy at this time.”

The Cessna 550 jet, which can accommodate up to 10 people, was
registered to Daviator LLC, a company based in Homer, Alaska, according
to FAA records. The company’s registered agent, Shapiro, is a certified flight instructor and airline transport pilot.

The business jet crashed into a military housing community in the Murphy
Canyon area just before 4 a.m. Thursday, according to Eddy. Officials
have yet to say exactly how many aircraft occupants perished, but did
confirm that no residents were killed in the crash.

“Crews arrived on scene to find multiple homes and cars on fire,” Eddy
said at a news conference. Firefighters were able to quell the flames,
but at least 10 homes were severely damaged, he said, and a block of
vehicles were left completely mangled — at least a dozen, according to footage from the scene.

At least eight residents were hurt, all with minor injuries, Eddy said.
One was taken to the hospital, while the others were treated for minor
injuries at a nearby evacuation center.

“There’s plane everywhere,” Eddy said, calling the scene a “gigantic debris field.”

The smell of jet fuel and burnt wood was still overwhelming in Murphy
Canyon, even blocks away from the crash and hours later. One
single-family home had a massive, charred hole on one side, while nearby
cars were almost completely flattened.

But the damage throughout the neighborhood was sporadic.

On one side of the street, a home had been scorched. But just across the
way, the lot appeared untouched.

Nearby, what had been a parked sedan was now burned beyond recognition —
the hood and all four doors blown open. On another section of the road
that appeared damage-free, the rear of a Honda Accord was completely
melted by the flames, its metal dripping into a puddle on the ground.

A young resident riding his scooter through the neighborhood seemed
puzzled by the scattered damage: “How did it go from there to there?” he asked himself.

Another resident described the impact of the plane as being like an
earthquake. He said he heard a loud boom, and when he stepped outside,
he saw the plane and the surrounding fire and wreckage.

“I can’t quite put words to describe what this scene looked like, jet
fuel going down the street, everything on fire all at once,” said San
Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl. “It was pretty horrific.”

City Councilmember Raul Campillo, who represents the neighborhood, said
he met some of the military families who evacuated in exceptionally
challenging conditions, with help from each other and first responders.

“I heard stories... about military families helping military families
out of their homes, jumping out of windows, avoiding fire,” Campillo
said. “We know there was many miracles and many heroic actions.”

Wahl said almost 100 people have been displaced from the crash and the
area remains closed for continued investigations and cleanup.

The private plane took off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey around
11:15 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday and stopped for just under an hour
in Wichita, Kan., according to the flight tracking site FlightAware. It
was headed for Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport, a general aviation
airport owned by the city of San Diego and located less than three miles
from the crash site.

Shortly after 3:40 a.m. the pilot announced on the radio that the plane
was three miles away from landing on runway 28, according to a recording
from LiveATC.net. The pilot did not signal any problem with the aircraft
and did not issue a distress call in the recordings reviewed by The Times.

The crash was reported at 3:47 a.m.

The National Transportation Safety Board had arrived by Thursday
afternoon to investigate, along with the FAA.

Eliott Simpson, a senior aviation accident investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, didn’t comment on possible causes of the
crash, but confirmed the plane first hit power lines and was damaged
about two miles from where it later crashed into a home. He said the jet
was flying in “very poor weather conditions.”

Dense fog had rolled into the area around the time the plane was
approaching the airport. Visibility was at half a mile at 3:55 a.m. and
had dropped to a quarter of a mile just after 4 a.m. in the area around
the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, which is just a few miles north of
the crash site, according to the National Weather Service.

“We had a marine layer that was deep enough that the clouds got into
some of the valleys this morning,” said Adam Roser, a meteorologist with
the National Weather Service in San Diego. “This one kind of crept in
from the ocean into the valley and led to some of those foggy conditions.”

Experts say investigators are likely scrutinizing several aspects of the
flight in their effort to determine what caused the crash, including
weather conditions, potential pilot fatigue and whether the plane’s navigational aids were working.

“There is never one hazard that becomes a causal factor in an aircraft accident like this,” said Thomas Anthony, director of the Aviation
Safety and Security Program at USC. “It’s always a combination of
multiple hazards.”

The executive airport’s control tower was not staffed at the time the
flight was approaching, so the separation from other aircraft would have
been handled by Southern California Approach Control, Anthony said. He downplayed what issues the lack of staffing may have caused, given that
flights routinely take off and land during overnight hours when the
tower is closed. At this point, the weather and time are likely the key
factors in the investigation, Anthony said.

“If you’re leaving from Teterboro and then landing in Wichita for gas,
the question is how long have the pilots been awake?” Anthony said.
“It’s a crucial issue because one of the human factors that reduces the safety margins is fatigue. Fatigue erodes our decision making capability
and it also makes us less likely to communicate or communicate well.”

“There is also, at 3:47 a.m., a sort of self-induced pressure to make it
work or to get to where you want to go,” he added.

Given the lower visibility near the airport, experts say the pilot was
likely operating under Instrument Flight Rules in which pilots adhere to specific regulations that allow them to navigate and control the
aircraft using instruments in low-visibility conditions. A pilot taking
off under Instrument Flight Rules is “perfectly safe as long as the
airplane is qualified for it and the pilot is qualified for it,” said
Robert L. Ditchey, a former Navy pilot and an aviation consultant. “It’s done every day all over the world.”

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-05-22/small-plane-crash-san-diego

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