A Cessna carrying six people crashed near Auld Road X Briggs Road in a field, killing all six near the landing approach at French Valley Airport in Murrieta, California, on Saturday, July 8, 2023. (Irfan Khan/TNS)
LOS ANGELES — Six people were killed early Saturday when their plane crashed near French Valley Airport in Riverside County, the second deadly crash in the area in the last four days.
The Cessna 550, a turbo fan jet, crashed in a field at 4:16 a.m. near Briggs and Auld roads in Murrieta, and immediately burst into flames, according to a tweet posted by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the Riverside County Fire Department.
All of the people aboard were pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said. Coroner’s officials had not released the identities of the pilot or passengers as of Saturday afternoon.
The flight originated from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, authorities said.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s aircraft tracking database lists the plane as belonging to Prestige Worldwide Flights of Imperial, California. Agents for the company could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Investigators with the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board responded to the scene.
The NTSB’s media office released a statement saying the plane crashed on its second approach to the airstrip.
On Saturday morning a layer of fog hung over the field where the wreckage lay, a short distance north of the runway.
Max Trescott, a Palo Alto flight instructor who publishes the Aviation News Talk podcast, said data from an FAA weather website showed that visibility three minutes before the jet’s initial approach just before 4 a.m. was one-eighth of a mile less than required for instrument approach at that airport.
A minute after the crash, visibility was worse, at three-eighths of a mile below the minimum.
“It was changing for the worse for these folks,” Trescott said. “The weather did get worse during the time they were making their two approaches.”
The pilot would not necessarily have received the second report of deteriorating conditions, he said.
The county-owned airport has no tower or air traffic control. Pilots can be guided to the airport on instruments but have to see the runway to land.
Trescott said the instrument landing would have guided the plane to about 250 feet above ground, at which point the pilot would have made the decision to land if he could see the runway.
Instead, he aborted and circled to make a second attempt. It wasn’t clear why the pilot made the second approach.
“If they had flown the approach the first time and didn’t see the runway, they could have chosen to divert to another airport with better weather,” Trescott said. “That would always be an option.”
NTSB spokeswoman Jennifer Gabris said no further information was immediately available. A preliminary report is expected in 15 days.
Todd Dressler, 66, a longtime Cessna pilot who was in the airport cafeteria Saturday, said he suspects the NTSB will find a mechanical cause.
“Once they get it all done, I bet something was going wrong with the plane, had to be,” Dressler said.
Saturday’s crash came four days after one person was killed and three injured when a plane struck the side of a building near French Valley Airport, authorities said.
In that crash, a single-engine Cessna 172 went down shortly after taking off from the airport, according to the county Fire Department. No one was hurt on the ground.
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