The plane flipped over, but nobody was hurt in the Feb. 10, 2020 mishap. Photo courtesy the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
The plane flipped over, but nobody was hurt in the Feb. 10, 2020 mishap. Photo courtesy the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

A small plane overshot the runway at Catalina Island, flipped over and landed on its roof in some brush, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Authorities said the plane was landing around 12:45 p.m. Monday, Feb. 10 at Catalina’s Airport in the Sky, which has a notoriously tricky runway that begins at the edge of a cliff. Some pilots compare it to landing on an aircraft carrier.

The pilot made it onto the ground, but for some reason, the plane didn’t stop at the end of the runway and drove over the edge of a mountainside embankment before coming to rest, authorities said.

“The pilot and the passenger were able to climb out of the damaged plane,” the Avalon Sheriff’s Station said on its Facebook page. “Neither the pilot or the passenger suffered any injuries and there was no fire.”

The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate exactly what caused the crash, the LASD said.

Jeremiah Dobruck is executive editor of the Long Beach Post where he oversees all day-to-day newsroom operations. In his time working as a journalist in Long Beach, he’s won numerous awards for his investigative reporting and editing. Before coming to the Post in 2018, he wrote for publications including the Press-Telegram, Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times. Reach him at [email protected] or @jeremiahdobruck on Twitter.