EAST COUNTY, Calif. — A plane that crashed near Gillespie Field Monday night was carrying four people when it departed John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, the Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday.
The Learjet 35 business jet crashed and caught fire on a residential road in the unincorporated neighborhood of Bostonia near El Cajon around 7:15 p.m., said Elizabeth Isham Cory, a spokesperson for the FAA. No survivors were found in the wreckage and no injuries were reported on the ground.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.
The plane crashed near Pepper Drive and Somerlane Street, a little west of North Second Street. One home was damaged and the plane tore through power lines, knocking out power to more than 2,500 homes shortly after the crash, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
A San Diego Gas & Electric Co. outage map showed more than 180 customers remaining without power Tuesday morning. Officials said the Red Cross would be assisting those affected by the outage.
Jessica Paredes, who lives on Pepper Drive, said she and her family were watching TV in the living room when they heard a loud, rumbling engine sound — so loud, she said it sounded like it “was inside my eardrum” — and she knew a plane was about to crash.
“When I heard the plane, all that came to mind was, ‘We are going to die, we are not going to make it out,’” she said.
She said everything went black, and then flames engulfed the street.
“That’s all you saw was flames everywhere,” she said.
She and her fiancé got her 6-year-old son, who has physical disabilities, and 13-year-old daughter out of the house — but then she had to go back inside to find her car keys.
“It looked like the whole world was on fire at that point,” she said. And then they started hearing explosions.
By time she got the car started, she had to drive through fire in order to get her family out.
“I’m terrified of fire,” she said. “My fiancé said, ‘You have to go; You have to gun it.’”
She said she was able to get some things out of her house Monday night. Her family stayed overnight with her mother and she was looking for temporary lodging that would accommodate them and their dog. She wasn’t sure when the power would be back on — and was unsure if the house had been damaged.
Video shot by OnScene TV showed the smoldering wreckage in the middle of the road, most of it destroyed. Parts from the plane, including landing gear, were strewn across the street.
The 10-seat jet was registered to Med Jet LLC of El Cajon, according to the FAA.
Monday’s incident was the second deadly plane crash in less than three months in an East County neighborhood. On Oct. 11, a Cessna C340 crashed on a residential street in Santee, killing the pilot and a UPS driver whose truck was hit by the plane.
Sheriff’s officials said the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office would be identifying those killed in the crash. They asked that anyone with photos or video of the crash to send that information to federal investigators at witness@ntsb.gov.
According to the NTSB, which tracks all flight-related accidents in the country, more than 8,200 aircrafts have crashed in California since July 1962.
Data show some 170 occurred in the San Diego area and 64 list Gillespie Field as a destination or departure airport.
More than 40 of the accidents related to Gillespie Field resulted in no injuries. NTSB data show 11 incidents caused 19 fatalities and nearly a dozen resulted in minor or serious injuries.
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