Plane Carrying Four Crashes Near Tahoe

INCLINE, Nev. — A twin-engine plane with four people aboard crashed and exploded Friday night about a mile from the north shore of Lake Tahoe, possibly after getting lost in heavy clouds, officials said.

The Beechcraft Super King Air 200, flying from Hayward, Calif., south of Oakland, to the lake, crashed near a fire lookout tower at Crystal Bay Point, a Washoe County Sheriff’s Department dispatcher said.

“Initial reports were that it exploded and burned on impact,” sheriff’s dispatcher Denise Dove said. The plane may have flown past a planned landing in Truckee, Calif., about 15 miles northwest of the crash site, because of heavy clouds over the Sierra Nevada, said Capt. Victor Van Arkel of the North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District.

The Federal Aviation Administration in Los Angeles said four people were scheduled to be aboard the plane and that it was flying from Hayward. There was no distress call, an FAA spokesman said.