Transportation officials today are investigating a plane crash that killed five people on Santa Catalina Island.
A twin-engine Beechcraft 95 crashed shortly after it departed from Catalina Airport in Avalon around 8 p.m. Tuesday, Federal Aviation Administration Public Affairs Specialist Rick Breitenfeldt told City News Service.
The aircraft went down in “rough terrain” about a mile west of the Catalina Airport in Avalon, according to authorities. Rescuers found five people in the wreckage; all five were determined to be dead at the scene, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.
Authorities haven’t yet identified the victims but said they were all adults.
It’s not clear yet what caused the crash. The Sheriff’s Department’s Avalon Station says it was alerted to the emergency when it received a 911 SOS emergency notification from a cell phone that stated its user may have been involved in a collision with possible injuries.
“The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate,” Breitenfeldt said.
According to FAA records, the plane was registered to a man named Ali Safai of West Hills, who was previously a flight instructor at now-defunct Santa Monica Aviation based at Santa Monica Airport.
According to the FlightAware flight-tracking website, the Beechcraft airplane took off from Santa Monica Airport shortly before 6 p.m. Tuesday and arrived at Catalina Airport about 20 minutes later.
Catalina Airport is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and aircraft operations are generally prohibited at all other times or when the airport is unattended.
Congressman Robert Garcia, who represents Catalina, said in a statement that he was “deeply saddened” to hear of the deadly crash.
City News Service and staff writer Jeremiah Dobruck contributed to this report.