Latest news with #EmmaHuke
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Yahoo
‘It's just like an emptiness': Friends and teammates remember victim of deadly plane crash
SAN DIEGO, Calif. — On Friday, the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office identified three of the passengers killed in Thursday morning's plane crash in the Tierrasanta neighborhood. All three of the identified victims, David Shapiro, Emma Huke, and Celina Kenyon, reportedly died of multiple blunt force injuries in the tragedy. Another victim, Dominic Damian, has been identified by his fellow athletes at The Training Center in Pacific Beach. Since 2007, Baret Yoshida would train with Damian as his instructor and said they became friends. 'I learned a lot from him,' Yoshida said, adding that he is working to keep Damian's memory alive. 'It's just like an emptiness, you know,' he said. Yoshida saidDamian would regularly travel with his friends in the music industry to watch their shows. 'I knew that those were like his best friends,' Yoshida said. He said he learned Damian was aboard the plane that crashed after Damian's wife messaged him with the news. 'I couldn't believe it was real,' Yoshida said. 'Even now, it's still settling in, you know, because just the other week, we're watching Dom hit home runs over the fence.' Damian, a black belt and accomplished Jiu Jitsu fighter, won several major awards, including silver and bronze at the World Jiu Jitsu Championships. 'He got to a really high level, and he beat a lot of the best guys in the world,' he said. Damian would share his knowledge with his fellow trainees. 'He was doing the same thing for almost everybody within the gym, regardless of who they were and where they were from, so he was definitely one of the main mentors for people,' said Byunghon Lee, one of Damian's fellow fighters. This shocking loss stings for the fighting community. 'This is the place I know I would feel his presence,' Lee said. Yoshida said his lasting legacy won't be forgotten. The Training Center plans to host an open mat at their location on Memorial Day in honor of Damian. 'I've been thinking about him a lot,' Yoshida said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Khaleej Times
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Khaleej Times
All 6 people on plane that crashed into San Diego neighbourhood confirmed dead
The six people onboard a small plane that crashlanded on a California neighborhood amid dense fog were all killed, according to investigating authorities. The Cessna 550 Citation, which federal records show belonged to music agent Dave Shapiro, plummeted into a residential area of San Diego at 3.47am (1047 GMT) on Thursday, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). It was not immediately clear what caused the Cessna to come plunging into the Murphy Canyon neighborhood, about two miles (3.2km) from the Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport where the aircraft was headed. In an audio recording posted to air traffic website the pilot can be heard asking about weather conditions prior to descent, while indicating that visibility was down to a minimum. "Doesn't sound great, but we'll give it a go," the pilot said. As the plane came down, it clipped a power line and the impact of the crash set several nearby houses and vehicles alight, jolting families awake before dawn. "The pilot and passengers were fatally injured," NTSB investigator Dan Baker told a press conference on Friday. He added that no one on the ground had been seriously hurt. While Baker did not specify the number of fatalities, the US Federal Aviation Administration previously said the private plane had six people onboard. The San Diego County medical examiner's office named three of the victims as Shapiro, 42, Emma Huke, 25, and Celina Kenyon, 36. Music veteran Shapiro was a co-founder of Sound Talent Group, which counts artists Hanson, Sum 41, Modern Baseball and Vanessa Carlton on its roster. The company told US media that two other members of its staff, booking assistants Huke and Kendall Fortner, were also killed in the crash. "We are devastated by the loss of our co-founder, colleagues and friends. Our hearts go out to their families and to everyone impacted," Sound Talent Group said in a statement. NBC7 identified the other victims as software engineer Dominic Damian and Daniel Williams, a former drummer for metalcore band The Devil Wears Prada. "No words. We owe you everything. Love you forever," the band wrote in a tribute to Williams on Instagram. Kenyon was a professional photographer and mother, according to her social media. Her father, Bryan Charles Feldman, told NBC7 she had chosen to fly home early with friends after a photo shoot rather than take a commercial plane so she could take her daughter to school the next day. At least 10 homes in San Diego's Murphy Canyon neighborhood were hit by debris, while the street was littered with charred remnants, scattered fiberglass and jet fuel. Eight people were treated for minor injuries, according to responding police and firefighters. The NTSB said the pilot had not reported any problems to air traffic control or declared an emergency before trying to land. The regional Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport was experiencing several glitches at the time, with its runway approach lights and an automated weather reporting system not operational, according to the NTSB's Baker. The plane was not equipped with a flight data recorder. "We are trying to determine at this time if the airplane was equipped with a cockpit voice recorder," Baker said. The NTSB said its preliminary investigation would take several weeks to complete.
Daily Mail
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
All six victims of San Diego horror plane crash are identified... as possible cause is revealed
The remaining victims of those on a private jet that crashed into a San Diego neighborhood and burst into flames have been identified. Emma Huke, 25, Kendall Fortner, 24, Dominic Damian and Celina Kenyon, 36, have been named as the remaining four on the Cessna 550 when it crashed on Thursday. They had been traveling alongside Daniel Williams, the former drummer of Christian metalcore band The Devil Wears Prada, and pilot Dave Shapiro when the flight plummeted into a residential street. Shapiro was a co-founder of music agency Sound Talent Group that both Huke and Fortner had worked for. The music producer - who also owned Velocity Records - had a pilot's license and was listed as the owner of the plane that crashed. He had just purchased the eight-seater plane in July, according to aircraft registration records. California native Fortner was a graduate of San Diego State University and had joined the company out of college as a booking associate. The company described her as being 'fiercely independent and strong-willed', saying she was 'the life of the party and lit up any room she entered'. She is survived by her parents Gary and Kristin, her brother Justin and his wife Hannah and their son, Theo, and her brother Jordan and his wife Kailey. Huke, from Orange County, had joined the company last year as a booking associate and was a graduate of the University of Oregon. A statement said: 'There was nothing Emma loved more than live music. She worked hard to save up money so she could travel to concerts and festivals. 'And while she loved all genres of music, her favorite artists to see live were Taylor Swift and The 1975.' Huke is survived by her parents, Tim and Allison, and her younger sibling Ellis. Kenyon was a professional photographer and her social media profiles show her snapping shots of musicians. Her mother Jennifer shared a post to her social media on Friday saying that her family was 'devastated beyond words', adding: 'The world has lost a beautiful bright light.' According to her mom, Kenyon had been traveling home to San Diego on the jet rather than a commercial flight so she could take her daughter to school. NBC San Diego reported that Damian was friends with Shapiro for years, and was working as a software engineer. His jiu-jitsu gym is holding a remembrance event for him this coming Monday. The flight took off from Teterboro, New Jersey, near Manhattan, at about 11.15pm Wednesday and made a fuel stop in Wichita, Kansas, before continuing on to San Diego. Based on the flight path, it was bound for Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport when it struck power lines about 2 miles southeast of the airfield, authorities said. The plane never made it to its final destination of San Diego's Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport, crashing down in a ball of flames just before 4am local time. Investigators said on Friday that the runway lights were out, a weather alert system wasn't working and there was heavy fog at the airport when Shapiro tried to land. The National Transportation Safety Board said officials would work over the next year to determine an official cause for how the plane crashed. 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. Just hours before the tragedy, Williams, 39, had chronicled his journey from New Jersey to California in posts on Instagram. One eerie photo captured the Cessna 550 at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey late Wednesday night as he boarded the flight, tagging Shapiro in the image. In another Instagram story, he shared a snap of the controls of the small aircraft, writing: 'Hey. Hey... you... look at me... I'm the (co)pilot now.' A now-haunting final post appeared to show him taking over the controls. 'Here we gooooo', the caption read. That was the final social media post he made. Audio recorded by includes a brief transmission from the pilot saying he was on final approach to the airport and was about 3 miles out at 3.45am After it emerged that Williams was on board the doomed aircraft, his band posted a heartbreaking tribute to him on social media. 'No words,' the band said. 'We owe you everything. Love you forever.' More than 50 police officers responded to the scene within minutes and began evacuating homes. At least 100 residents were displaced to an evacuation center at a nearby elementary school after at least 10 houses were burned or hit by debris from the crash. Amazingly nobody died on the ground, but eight people were injured in the collision.
