A small plane crash-landed and flipped upside down on a beach killing a former mayor, authorities confirmed.
Rex Minter, who served as Santa Monica mayor from 1963 to 1967, was a passenger in the single-engine Cessna that took off from Santa Monica Airport about 3pm Thursday en route to Malibu.
The pilot was taken to a hospital as the City of Santa Monica and current Mayor Gleam Davis separately confirmed Minter's death.
According to a flight recording, the pilot reported engine trouble and tried to return to the airport but then decided to make an emergency landing, KCBS-TV reported.
In a recording played on KTTV-TV, air traffic control warns the pilot that "landing on the beach will be at your own risk."
"I wish I had another choice," the pilot replied.
Video showed the plane descending for a beach landing but hitting the water at the shoreline and flipping over south of the Santa Monica Pier.
Firefighters removed two people from the plane, one of them in cardiac arrest, authorities said.
Minter was elected to the Santa Monica City Council in 1955 and served as mayor between 1963 and 1967, later serving as city attorney for Arcadia and as a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, a statement on the city's website said.
Davis said in a tweet that she had relayed the city's condolences to Minter's family.
The plane crash comes just weeks after a couple and their 12-year-old daughter were killed in a fatal plane crash.
Christian Kath, 42, who originally hails from Queensland, Australia, was flying the Piper Cherokee PA-28 aircraft while his wife Misty, 43 and daughter Lilly were passengers.
The couple had moved to St Petersburg, Florida, when their youngster daughter Harper was having a sleepover at a friend's house when they decided to take the plane out.
Tragically, the plane crashed off the coast of Venice Beach just 16 seconds after taking off.
Police Chief Charlie Thorpe said the wreckage was spotted offshore where the plane was submerged in 15 feet of water.
Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office divers found the dead girl in the passenger area. Misty's body was found a few kilometres nearby.
Christian's body still hasn't been found.
Harper is now the only remaining member of the family-of-four and has been left without parents and her sister.
