Authorities ID victims in the fatal San Diego aircraft crash

There were no clear answers on Friday after what caused a deadly private jet crash in TieraSanta on the early Thursday morning, although the federal authorities said that the pilot had hit a power transmission line when he turned to Montgomery-GibBS Executive Airport, where two important weather and lighting systems were inconsistent for poor visibility at this time.

Officials in the district of San Diego identified three of the six occupants of the Jet, who were killed in the crash and that was on it. One was the 42-year-old music agent and certified pilot David Shapiro, who owned the company to which the Cessna 550 Citation II was registered.

The authorities have not confirmed whether Shapiro has piloted the plane, but said whoever flying without explaining an emergency or not calling in any mechanical problems with the aircraft before it was snapped in a power supply and was hit into a residential street in the military community of the Murphy Canyon Military Housing. The crash damaged several houses and blew a huge, blackened hole in a duplex of the corner and ignited several cars in flames. Eight people suffered injuries on the ground, most of them relatively low.

Max Trescott, a pilot and moderator of the Aviation News Talk Podcast, said the available information about the crash points out that the pilot descends too quickly.

“The core was that the pilot flew too low,” said Trescott. “He flew down to about 500 feet, which is 173 feet below the minimum minimum for this approach. … This is a phenomenal amount that is low in the case of an approach.”

The investigators of the National Transportation Safety Board continued to search the accident site on Friday afternoon and documented evidence in a burned -out rubble field that extended the entire sample road in a neighborhood east of the Interstate 15 and south of the Aero Drive. The crash site is about 2 miles east of Montgomery-Gibbs in Kearny Mesa, where the plane landed in foggy conditions on Thursday at 3:45 a.m. after flown with a stop in Kansas Cross-Country from New Jersey.

“I think an important factor is that this pilot was in the air for seven and a half hours,” said Trescott. “Fatigue could have been a factor.”

The Cessna 550 Citation II, a kind of small corporate beam with two engines near the back between the wings and the tail, was not equipped with a flight data recorder, which is often referred to as “Black Box”, according to Dan Baker, the leading investigator of the NTSB. Baker informed the reporters near the scene on Friday that the investigators will first examine the wrecks for information on what caused the crash, and then turn their attention to “human factors” such as potential pilot errors and the aircraft's maintenance and performance records.

Baker said the NTSB has not yet set the cause of the crash, but the agency will publish a preliminary report within 30 days and a final report in one to two years.

Crash victim

The medical examiner's office identified Shapiro, Emma L. Huke (25) and Celina Marie Rose Kenyon (36) as victims of the crash. The office did not provide any information where it lived or other personal data.

Shapiro said in a podcast interview that he was immediately enthusiastic about aviation after taking his first intro flight at the age of 22, the Associated Press reported. Photos of Shapiro show that he had tattooed an airplane over his neck.

The music agency of the Sound Talent, based in San Diego in San Diego in San Diego in San Diego, gave a statement on Thursday, in which he and two employees of the company, which he co -founded, had been killed. One of the employees was Huke, according to an explanation that the Sound Talent Group KPBs delivered.

Huke grew up in Orange County and was a graduate of the University of Oregon in 2022. According to the declaration, she came to Sound Talent Group as a booking employee last year.

“There was nothing that Emma loved more than live music,” said her employer. “She worked hard to save money so that she could travel to concerts and festivals.”

The company also identified Kendall Fortner as another victim of the crash. The authorities have not confirmed their identity.

Fortner visited the San Diego State University and started shortly after graduation in 2021 after doing an internship there during the College internship.

“Kendall was heavily independent and strong in will and was the life of the party and highlighted any room that she entered,” said the KPBS company in his explanation.

Kenyon lived in Carlsbad and was a professional photographer, according to her family's explanation, who said that through their loss “beyond the words”, they were led “beyond the words”.

In the explanation of Kenyon's father Bryan Feldman, the family said that she had the private plane in the hope of coming home in time to bring her daughter to school on Thursday.

“The family is all too” Kenyon, said the explanation and described them as a “amazing mother, daughter, sister, granddaughter, partner and girlfriend”.

Among the others that were assumed that they were on the plane, Daniel Williams, the former drummer of Ohio Metal Band The Devil Wears Prada. In the hours before the crash, Williams had published several Instagram stories that showed the Cessna and him on the co-pilot seat next to Shapiro.

Inoperable systems

Baker, the NTSB lead investigator, said two different systems in Montgomery-Gibbs were out of operation at the time of crash. One was a weather report system that is known as an automated surface observation station.

“The … system that pilots provides the weather conditions for airports was not functional at the time of the accident due to a non -related electricity at Montgomery Airport,” said Baker. It did not provide any further details about the electricity tax or how long the weather report system was not in operation.

A spokesman for the city of San Diego, who owns and operates Montgomery-Gibbs, said that the airport was “not informed about failures” in which the weather reporting is involved in the Federal Aviation Administration.

Trescott said that weather sensors who are not functional did not happen much, but it wasn't anything that he was shocked either.

Baker said that radio communication between the pilot and the air traffic controllers pointed out that the pilot knew that the weather system was not operational. A air traffic controller provided the pilot weather information from the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, about 4 miles north of Montgomery-Gibbs, which indicates the visibility of half a mile and a cloud cover of 200 feet.

“Okay, um, does not sound good, but we will try it,” the pilot in Audio, which was recorded by LiveAtc.net, replied.

The other system that was no longer was a runway lighting system, which is known as a light system for medium intensity approach with the lights for runway orientations.

FAA records showed that the Runway lighting system had been out of service since October 24, but the airport had issued an indication of the failure known as the “notification of Airms” or Notam. Pilots should search for notams as part of their flight planning. It was unclear whether the pilot had done this on Thursday or whether he either played a failure in the crash.

The indicator lights are a number of flashing lights, which according to Trescott, which she described as “rails”, extends from the runway towards the incoming aircraft. He said they lead or lead a pilot to the runway and are “invaluable” under poor visual conditions.

“In very poor visibility, the rails will help to contribute to this,” said Trescott. “This is an important thing because it really helps pilots to find the runway when visibility is bad.”

Trescott said that the other indicators that were out of helping pilots help find out in which angles they land. This, he said, were “a little less critical”.

The city's spokesman said that the lights and visual indicators of the FAA, which were sunk at the time of the crash, were kept and maintained, which did not answer questions late Friday. Other lights at the airport, which were cultivated by the city, “including the lights of the runway, Taxiway Lights, Airport Beacon and others … were in operation at the time of the incident,” said the city's spokesman.

Most of the eight people who were injured suffered minor injuries and were treated and released in a nearby evacuation center. One was taken to a hospital to be treated for smoke in breathing.

According to Philip Rizzo, CEO of Liberty Military Housing, the crash had around 60 families driven out on Thursday, which manages the real estate in which the plane was hit. Around 40 of them remained on Friday and need temporary apartments for at least a week.

Some may need much longer, said Rizzo.

As soon as the NTSB investigators release the site, the cleaning – including dangerous materials and floor tests – must be carried out before the return of the families.

Most evacuated fled in the middle of the night, some without wallets or keys. An emergency declaration by the commander of San Diego Naval Base, Captain Robert Heely, solved the way to provide DIEM agents for the families.

Originally published: May 23, 2025 at 6.17 p.m. PDT