Five people are dead after a small plane crashed on Catalina Island off Southern California , sheriff’s department says.
The twin-engine Beechcraft 95 crashed shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday, just moments after it departed from Catalina Airport near the island town of Avalon, according to the Federal Aviation Administration .
Five people were on board, the FAA said. Five adults were found dead at the scene in rugged terrain about a mile (1.6 kilometers) west of the airport, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office said. The airfield is known as the Airport in the Sky because of its location at an elevation of 1,602 feet (488 meters) on the island about 25 miles (40 kilometers) off the coast of Los Angeles. It has a single, 3,000-foot (914-meter) runway.
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The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate. Records show the aircraft crashed “under unknown circumstances” when is was about a mile out from the airport. The Island is one of California’s Channel Islands and is located 21 miles southwest of Los Angeles.