San Diego police confirmed the pilot of a small plane that crashed Wednesday night in a La Jolla neighborhood is dead after an hourslong search for the wreckage.
At around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, SDPD reported a small plane lost communication with area towers. A full crash response was dispatched and after a couple of hours, police discovered the wreckage using a drone unit at around 3 a.m. after receiving a tip from a resident.
Flight tracking data shows the plane took off from Buchanan Field Airport in Concord, California, around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, then diverted to French Valley Airport in Murrieta, California, before taking off again for San Diego. Data also shows the pilot attempted to land at Montgomery Field in Kearny Mesa before continuing northwest toward La Jolla.
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"Around 9:30 last night, the pilot radioed in that he was low on fuel," SDPD Lt. Bryan Brecht told NBC 7 before communication was lost.
Police arrived at the scene to find the pilot of the crash dead at the scene. Police confirmed the pilot was a man and that he was the only one onboard.
Rain and fog along the coast severely reduced visibility Wednesday night.
The plane landed on a walking path just behind some homes in the neighborhood.
"It’s a little bit of a shock because I’m seeing the direction in which the plane is facing now and how close it is to my house. It could’ve just flown into my house. That is, that is wild," said Ryan Krasner, a resident who says he didn't hear anything last night and did not know anything about the crash until police knocked on his door.
The plane, a single-engine Cessna 210, was found to have sustained front damage with its propeller off, according to police. The plane did not sustain damage to its wings. Records show the owner of the Cessna has the highest private pilot rating. Police have not yet released the identity of the pilot, so it is unclear if the owner was piloting the aircraft.
No one else was hurt in this incident and no houses were damaged.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are investigating the crash.
National Transportation Safety Board air-safety investigator Paul Basti briefly discussed the incident with the media, standing just feet away from the crash site on Thursday afternoon.
"On behalf of all of us at the National Transportation Safety Board, we offer our sincere condolences to the family and friends of the victim who lost their life in this tragic accident," Basti said at the beginning of his remarks.
Basti said the Cessna originated out of Concord with an unknown destination and, once the aircraft was in San Diego airspace, it conducted an instrument approach at Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport in San Diego but missed that approach.
"The airplane was located early this morning," Basti said. "It collided with terrain, and the occupant was fatally injured."
The NTSB team in La Jolla was conducting its field investigation phase and expected to issue a preliminary analysis within 14 days, with the final report being issued in approximately 18 months.
Basti was asked for an identification of the pilot but he said he did not have that information at this time. He said the NTSB was there to gather factual evidence.
"We are focused on three main areas: That's the pilot, the machine and the environment," Basti said. "So the pilot's qualifications, for example. The machine: We'll look at the maintenance records, the conditions of the aircraft prior to that, the records that exist. And the environmental conditions — so, of course, we're going to be looking at weather reports. Factual information that we can gather."
The NTSB official said he and his team will be recovering the aircraft on Thursday during the daytime, and bringing it to a secure location for further examination.
