Runway lights weren't working as pilot tried to land at foggy San Diego
airport before fatal crash
[May 24, 2025]
By JULIE WATSON and JOSH FUNK
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The runway lights were out, a weather alert system
wasn’t working and there was heavy fog at a San Diego airport when a
pilot who had flown across the country made the decision to proceed with
landing but came up short and crashed into a neighborhood, likely
killing all six aboard the aircraft, investigators said Friday.
Investigator Dan Baker of the National Transportation Safety Board said
officials will work over the next year to determine what caused the
Cessna 550 Citation to crash just before 4 a.m. Thursday. The jet was
carrying a music executive and five others. No one in the neighborhood
of U.S. Navy housing died, but eight people were treated for smoke
inhalation from the fiery crash and non-life-threatening injuries.
The pilot acknowledged the weather conditions for landing at the small
airport were not ideal and debated diverting to a different airport
while discussing the visibility with an air traffic controller at a
regional Federal Aviation Administration control tower, according to
audio of the conversation posted by LiveATC.net.
The FAA had posted an official notice for pilots that the lights were
out of service, but it’s not known whether the pilot had checked it. He
didn’t discuss the lights being out with air traffic control, but was
aware that the airport’s weather alert system was inoperable.
Ultimately, the pilot is heard saying that he’ll stick with the plan to
land at Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport.
“Doesn’t sound great but we’ll give it a go,” he told the air traffic
controller.
The plane crashed about 2 miles (3.22 kilometers) from the airport.
Baker said a power surge knocked out the weather system at the airport
but the pilot was aware of the fog and an air traffic controller gave
him weather information from Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, about 4
miles (6.44 kilometers) north.
Music talent agent Dave Shapiro, and two employees of the music agency
he co-founded, Sound Talent Group, were among the dead along with the
former drummer for metal band The Devil Wears Prada. Shapiro, 42, had a
pilot’s license and was listed as the owner of the plane.
The two employees who died were Kendall Fortner, 24, and Emma Huke, 25,
both Southern California natives and booking associates for the agency.
The crash added to a long list of aviation disasters this year while
federal officials have tried to reassure travelers that flying is the
safest mode of transportation, which statistics support.
Shapiro's aircraft took off from Teterboro, New Jersey, near Manhattan,
at about 11:15 p.m. local time Wednesday and made a fuel stop in
Wichita, Kansas, before continuing on to San Diego. He was returning to
San Diego after a band he manages, Pierce The Veil, played for a
sold-out audience at Madison Square Garden.
That overnight schedule wouldn't be allowed for an airliner under
federal crew rest rules, but those regulations don't apply to private
planes.
Assistant San Diego Fire Department Chief Dan Eddy said the fog was so
thick in the morning that “you could barely see in front of you.”
Former NTSB and FAA crash investigator Jeff Guzzetti said he thinks
dense fog and fatigue after the pilot flew all night long were likely
factors in the crash.
“This accident has all the earmarks of a classic attempt to approach an
airport in really bad weather and poor visibility,” Guzzetti said. “And
there were other airports that the crew could have gone to.”
He said pilots are required to check FAA posts called Notices to Airmen
that alert pilots to any issues such as runway lights being out.
“It’s fairly easy for the pilot to get that information and they are
required to get that information before any flight they take,” Guzzetti
said.
[to top of second column]
|
Investigators work at the site of a plane crash Friday, May 23,
2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
The pilot also would have likely noticed the lights weren’t working
as he descended. Without lights, procedure dictated that he should
have climbed and diverted to another airport, Guzzetti said.
Fragments of the plane were found under power lines that are about a
half block from the homes. It went on to lose a wing on the road
directly behind the homes. Guzzetti said even if the plane had
missed the power lines it may have still crashed because it was
coming in too low in the fog.
A terrifying wakeup
The crash site shows more damage on the front side of homes,
including a smashed stone landscaping wall and an incinerated truck
that was parked across the street and shoved into the living room of
its owner's home before catching fire.
Ben McCarty and his wife, who live in the home that was hit, said
they felt heat all around them after being woken up by an explosion.
“All I could see was fire. The roof of the house was still on fire.
You could see the night sky from our living room,” McCarty, who has
served in the Navy for 13 years, told local ABC affiliate KGTV.
Flames blocked many of the exits so they grabbed their children and
dogs and ran out the back but the burning debris blocked the gate so
neighbors helped them climb over the fence to escape.
“We got the kids over the fence and then I jumped over the fence.
They brought a ladder and we got the dogs,” McCarty said.
Meanwhile, fiery jet fuel rolled down the block igniting everything
in its path from trees to plastic trash containers to car after car.
McCarty's home was the only one destroyed, though another 10
residences suffered damage, authorities said.
McCarty said his family used to enjoy living under the flight path
so they could watch the planes pass overhead.
“Us and our kids would sit on our front porch and we’d look up and
my sons would always be excited saying ‘plane plane’ watching the
planes go by and ironically right where we were sitting is where
that plane hit,” McCarty said.
Now, he wants to move.
"I’m not going to live over that flight line again — it’s going to
be hard to sleep at night,” McCarty said.
It could have been much worse
Guzzetti said in his experience there often aren’t deaths on the
ground when a plane crashes in a residential area unless people are
right where the plane hits such as in Philadelphia in January.
At least 100 residents in the San Diego neighborhood were evacuated
and officials said it was unclear when it would be safe for people
to return.
Thursday's crash comes only weeks after a small plane crashed into a
neighborhood in Simi Valley northwest of Los Angeles, killing both
people and a dog aboard the aircraft but leaving no one on the
ground injured.
In October 2021 a twin-engine plane plowed into a San Diego suburb,
killing the pilot and a UPS delivery driver on the ground and
burning homes.
___
Funk contributed to this report from Omaha, Nebraska.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
