Six dead in corporate jet crash near Los Angeles in USA
Los Angeles (Reuters) – All six people aboard a small corporate jet died when the aircraft crashed and burned in a field near an airport outside the Los Angeles area early on Saturday, local and federal authorities said.
The aircraft, a Cessna C550 business jet, was traveling from Las Vegas and crashed near French Valley Airport, about 85 miles (136.79 km) south of Los Angeles, at around 4:15 a.m. (0815 GMT), the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.
Details of the passengers were not immediately available.
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Aerial video from local media showed burnt rubble in the shape of a small aircraft laying in a blackened part of a field across the road from the French Valley Airport.
Radar data from flight tracking website FlightAware shows just one business jet traveling from Las Vegas to French Valley at the time. That plane circled once near the field before descending.
The sheriff’s office in Riverside County, where the French Valley Airport is located, said officials responding to the crash located an aircraft fully engulfed in flames in a field and that six occupants were pronounced deceased at the scene.
The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash, the FAA said.
Reporting by Brad Heath in Washington and Ismail Shakil in Ottawa; editing by Diane Craft