5 Die in Catalina Plane Crash

Five people aboard a small plane from Long Beach died Wednesday when the aircraft slammed into a Santa Catalina Island mountainside as the pilot attempted to land in overcast weather, federal aviation authorities said.

Low visibility, light rain and mist caused the pilot to miss the runway at Catalina’s Airport in the Sky on the first try, said Donn Walker, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

The pilot had circled around and was making a second approach when the crash occurred, Walker said.

“The visibility was so poor he decided to go back around for a second attempt,” Walker said.

The victims were not identified Wednesday but they appeared to be three adults and two children, said Brendon Peart, a Los Angeles County Fire Department supervising dispatcher.

Investigators from the Los Angeles County coroner’s office were sent to the remote crash site, about a mile and a half southwest of the airport, but officials said they might not learn the names of the victims until today.

David Campbell, a spokesman for the coroner’s office, said an assessment team was en route to see if recovery of the bodies could be completed in the relatively remote area Wednesday. If not, a special crew would be sent today.

The twin-engine Piper Seneca with seven seats took off from Long Beach Airport at 9:54 a.m., bound for Santa Catalina Island, Walker said.

It crashed at 10:20 a.m. on the side of Mt. Orizaba, about 500 feet below Black Jack Peak. The site is between the airport and Avalon, the town on the south end of the island.

The county Fire Department dispatched a helicopter to spot the wreckage, which had burned. Lifeguards and rescuers from the Coast Guard got to the scene on foot just after 1 p.m., officials said.

Walker said the National Transportation Safety Board would investigate the cause of the crash.

Despite the bad weather, “it would be completely inappropriate to speculate about the cause,” Walker said. “The weather was bad, but planes land all the time in poor weather.”

The last fatal crash at Catalina’s airport occurred Aug. 2, 2002, when a twin-engine plane landed and skidded off the end of the runway and exploded. Both occupants died. The Beechcraft Baron was going too fast when it landed and ended up about 100 yards from the end of the runway, authorities said.

In the last five years, eight small, fixed-wing aircraft and two helicopters have crashed on the island or in the choppy waters between Catalina and the mainland.