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New York Post
24-05-2025
- General
- New York Post
Lights out at airport where doomed jet was supposed to land before crash that killed famous drummer, music agent
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, 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. local time 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. Advertisement 7 Daniel Williams made several posts of the plane before the fatal crash. @xcadaverx/Instagram 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 The Federal Aviation Administration 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. Advertisement 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. 7 The private jet sits on the tarmac at New Jersey's Teterboro Airport on May 21, 2025. @xcadaverx/Instagram 'Doesn't sound great but we'll give it a go,' he told the air traffic controller. The plane crashed about 2 miles 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 north. Advertisement Music talent agent Dave Shapiro, and two unnamed 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 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. 7 Music agent Dave Shapiro was among the dead in Thursday's plane crash in San Diego. Instagram/davevelocity 7 Drummer Daniel Williams performs with The Devil Wears Prada at the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival at San Manuel Amphitheater in San Bernardino, Calif., on June 30, 2012. Getty Images Advertisement 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. 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. 7 Investigators look through the site where a small plane crashed on a San Diego, California, residential street. AFP via Getty Images '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. The pilot also would have likely noticed the lights weren't working as he descended. Advertisement 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 then lost 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. 7 Debris covers the ground after a small plane crashed into a San Diego neighborhood, setting homes and cars on fire and forcing evacuation. AP 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. Advertisement 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. 7 Dave Shapiro leaves a US Citizenship and Immigration Services building in an undated photo posted to Instagram. Instagram/davevelocity 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. Advertisement 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 killed both people and a dog aboard the aircraft but left 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.
New York Post
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Ex-Devil Wears Prada drummer Daniel Williams posted haunting photos inside cockpit of doomed private jet hours before deadly crash
Former The Devil Wears Prada drummer Daniel Williams shared haunting photos inside the cockpit of the private plane that would later crash in a San Diego neighborhood, killing the rocker and music industry big shot David Shapiro. In his first post, Williams tagged Shapiro and snapped a picture of the doomed Cessna 550 aircraft before they boarded on the runway at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey on Wednesday night. 'Flying back with @davevelocity,' the drummer captioned the post on his Instagram story. Advertisement 7 Former The Devil Wears Prada drummer Daniel Williams shared haunting photos to his Instagram story of the plane he was taking to California hours before it crashed. @xcadaverx/Instagram Williams, who was an original member of the band, was also seen inside the cockpit of the private plane in two of his posts. 'Hey. Hey… you… look at me… I'm the (co)pilot now,' Williams, 39, wrote with a view of the aircraft controls and windshield. Advertisement 'Here we goooooo,' the second post reads, with the yoke between his legs. Williams and Shapiro were among six people on board the jet when it hit a power line in foggy weather and crashed in Murphy Canyon, a San Diego neighborhood housing military families, around 3:45 a.m. Thursday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Officials have yet to ID all on board, but said there were no survivors. Miraculously, no one on the ground was killed or seriously wounded. Williams' former Devil Wears Prada band members confirmed the 39-year-old's death in social media posts Thursday. Advertisement 7 Williams, who was an original member of the band, was also seen inside the cockpit of the private plane in two of his posts. @xcadaverx/Instagram 7 'Here we goooooo,' the second post reads, with the yoke between his legs. @xcadaverx/Instagram 7 Williams of The Devil Wears Prada performs at the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival at San Manuel Amphitheater on June 30, 2012, in San Bernardino, California. Getty Images 'No words. We owe you everything. Love you forever,' the band wrote in an Instagram post. Advertisement Williams joined The Devil Wears Prada during its inception in 2005 before he left the band in 2016. Just a week before he was killed, Williams revealed that he had accepted an engineering job at Apple. 'I'm very excited to share that I've accepted a software engineering role at Apple. It's been really tough to say goodbye to my friends and colleagues of nearly 8 years at GoPro, but it's time for my next chapter. It's time to help build the future,' he wrote in the May 14 post. 7 Williams of The Devil Wears Prada performs during the Vans Warped Tour on June 22, 2014, in Ventura, California. WireImage 7 Authorities work the scene where a small plane crashed into a San Diego neighborhood, setting several homes on fire and forcing evacuations along several blocks early Thursday, May 22, 2025. AP Williams' death also comes six years after he survived a mass shooting in his home state of Ohio. The drummer revealed he had a lucky escape from inside the Ned Peppers bar in Dayton when gunman Connor Betts opened fire, killing nine victims and wounding 27 others, on August 4, 2019. 'I was in Ned Peppers. I'm still not sure exactly what happened. People were piling on top of each other to get out. It's all a blur. F–king awful,' Williams posted on X at the time. Advertisement 7 Dave Shapiro was also killed the the plane crash. Instagram/davevelocity Shapiro, 42, co-founded Sound Talent Group (STG), whose clients include bands Sum 41, Story of the Year and Parkway Drive. His talent agency confirmed his death. 'We are devastated by the loss of our co-founder, colleagues and friends … Thank you so much for respecting their privacy at this time,' the agency said in a statement shared with Billboard. The two men were lovingly remembered by music industry insiders across social media. Advertisement 'Rest in Peace Dave Shapiro, Daniel Williams, and everyone on that flight. Some of my very first shows were booked through Dave. I had a handful of shows with Daniel, always a pleasure to see him play. Gone way too soon,' music executive Terrance Coughlin wrote on X.
