Did thick fog play a role in the San Diego plane crash? What we know about the fatal accident

Los Angeles Times

23-05-2025

Six people are presumed dead after a jet airplane crashed into a residential neighborhood in San Diego County on Thursday morning amid dense fog, but investigators have yet to release the names of those aboard.
The investigation into what led to the fiery crash in the Tierrasanta neighborhood is still underway, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The federal agency expects to announce additional information Friday afternoon at 1 p.m. about their investigation into the incident.
The San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office has not identified any of the victims in the crash. A spokesperson for the office expects at least two names to be released Friday.
Here's what we know so far:
What happened
A Cessna 550 jet, which can accommodate up to 10 people, took off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey at around 11:15 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday and stopped for just under an hour in Wichita, Kan., according to the flight tracking site FlightAware. The aircraft was headed for Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport, a general aviation airport owned by the city of San Diego and located less than three miles from the crash site.
Around 3:40 a.m. Thursday, the jet made its approach to the airport. The pilot announced on the radio that the plane was three miles away from landing on Runway 28, according to a recording from LiveATC.net. The pilot did not signal any problems with the aircraft and did not issue a distress call in the recordings reviewed by The Times.
The crash was reported roughly seven minutes later, according to authorities.
Impact and poor conditions
The plane hit power lines about two miles before making impact with a house in the residential neighborhood in the Murphy Canyon area, a neighborhood that consists of military housing.
Jet fuel and debris spread across the neighborhood. At least eight people on the ground suffered minor injuries and one person was taken to the hospital, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department Assistant Chief Dan Eddy said Wednesday.
The exact measurement of where wreckage of the plane fell was still being determined by investigators.
'There's plane everywhere,' Eddy said, calling the scene a 'gigantic debris field.'
Eliott Simpson, a senior aviation accident investigator for the NTSB, said the aircraft was flying in 'very poor weather conditions.'
Dense fog had rolled into the area around the time the plane was approaching the airport. Visibility was at half a mile at 3:55 a.m. and had dropped to a quarter of a mile just after 4 a.m. in the area around Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, which is just a few miles north of the crash site, according to the National Weather Service.
'We had a marine layer that was deep enough that the clouds got into some of the valleys this morning,' said Adam Roser, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego. 'This one kind of crept in from the ocean into the valley and led to some of those foggy conditions.'
Casualties
The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that six people were aboard the jet. Officials said it was likely that nobody survived, but have not released a total number of casualties from the crash.
At least two individuals were identified by colleagues, including Dave Shapiro, co-founder of Sound Talent Group, a San Diego County-based music agency, and Daniel Williams, who posted on his Instagram on Wednesday afternoon that he was boarding the plane with Shapiro. Williams is the former drummer of the metalcore band The Devil Wears Prada. The band posted a tribute to Williams and Shapiro on its Facebook page.
Sound Talent Group confirmed to The Times that three of its employees died in the crash.
In a statement, the company said, 'We are devastated by the loss of our co-founder, colleagues and friends. Our hearts go out to their families and to everyone impacted by today's tragedy. Thank you so much for respecting their privacy at this time.'