5 dead in Catalina Island plane crash; owner, a former flight instructor, was reportedly on board

Jireh Deng, Joseph Serna and Clara Harter, Los Angeles Times on Oct 9, 2024

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LOS ANGELES — Five people were dead after a twin-engine plane crashed on Catalina Island on Tuesday night, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Just after 8 p.m., deputies at the sheriff’s Avalon station on the island received a 911 emergency notification from a cellphone alerting them that the plane had been in a crash involving injuries and sent them GPS coordinates, the Sheriff’s Department said in a news release.

Crews from Avalon and the L.A. County fire and sheriff’s departments joined in a search and found the plane about a mile west of Catalina Airport, according to the release.

The Beechcraft 95 had departed the airport with five people on board moments before it crashed, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Five adults were found dead at the scene. Wednesday morning, the coroner and other emergency personnel were flying in by helicopter to retrieve the bodies that were stranded on rough and steep terrain, the Sheriff’s Department said.

The owner of the plane was Ali Safai of the West Hills neighborhood of L.A., according to FAA records. Safai was the founder of Santa Monica Aviation, a flight school that operated out of Santa Monica Airport until the school closed in 2018.

The Beechcraft plane took off from Santa Monica Airport at 5:57 p.m. Tuesday and landed at Catalina Airport at 6:20 p.m., according to Flight Aware. Safai’s wife told KNBC-TV that he was on board the plane when it crashed.

The National Weather Service said conditions near Catalina Airport the night of the crash were calm, clear and quiet. The temperature was in the balmy low 70s with light winds under 5 miles per hour and no fog.

The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash.

Catalina has been the site of several serious aviation crashes. In 2002, five people died when an aircraft slammed into a hillside on the island. Low visibility, light rain and mist caused the pilot to miss the runway at Catalina’s Airport in the Sky on the first try, officials said.

In 2008, three people were killed and three others were injured, two critically, when a sightseeing helicopter crashed near Two Harbors. The next year, three were killed when a tour airplane crashed in the rain.