Chilling mayday call from pilot of doomed plane before it plunges into ocean
The Coast Guard confirmed on Sunday that all six people on board the doomed aircraft that crashed into the ocean near San Diego after taking off from San Diego International Airport have died
In yet another American aviation tragedy, a small plane carrying six people nosedived into the ocean shortly after takeoff on Sunday with authorities confirming that the crash claimed the lives of everyone on board.
The doomed twin-engine Cessna 414 crashed at around 12.30pm on Sunday in San Diego, just three miles west of Point Loma.
The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) has confirmed the deaths of all six passengers, but their identities are pending official release.
Harrowing audio from air traffic control, shared by CBS 8, captured the pilot's desperate plea for higher altitude immediately after leaving San Diego International Airport.
The aircraft barely managed to reach 1000ft during its doomed ascent, with the pilot uttering "mayday" over the radio before falling silent.
Coast Guard crews swiftly located a debris field off the coast near San Diego's Point Loma area on Sunday. According to The Associated Press reports, the ocean at the crash site has a depth of around 200ft.
Following the devastating incident, the Coast Guard launched a major search operation, involving a Jayhawk helicopter, a fixed-wing aircraft, a cutter, and two smaller boats, continuing their search until dusk.
"We've located a debris field, but I don't have details on its size yet," Coast Guard Petty Officer Ryan Graves told NBC 7 shortly before 3.30pm on Sunday.
A surfer told NBC 7 about the chilling moment he saw the aircraft plummet: "The next time he came out of the clouds, he went straight into the water.
But after I saw this splash, about six seconds later, it was dead silent. I knew that they went in the water, nose first, at a high speed," Tyson Wislofsky revealed.
After confirming that the doomed plane belongs to vitamin producers Optimal Health Systems, there's been an update from the company that the FAA records might be behind the times.
The Arizona-based firm, which sold the plane just this year, said it passed to private hands.
Founder Doug Grant joined in mourning, stating:
"We personally know several of the passengers onboard, and our sincerest condolences are offered to those affected by the tragedy, all of whom are incredible members of our small community."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
a day ago
- BBC News
Search begins after light aircraft crashes in sea off Hemsby
A light aircraft has crashed into the sea and a search is under way for passengers, a lifeboat service has Coastguard received a mayday call saying the plane was in distress about two to three nautical miles (3.7 to 5.6km) off the coast at Hemsby Gap in Norfolk at 12:34 Deeks of Hemsby Lifeboat said crews from Caister and Gorleston had joined them in the search, alongside a Humber Coastguard added they had no information as to the type of plane or how many people were on board. All ships in the area have been asked to respond to the search for the aircraft, which emitted a beacon distress signal before is not known if a life raft was launched from the plane after it landed in the Deeks said lifeboat crews "could be searching for a while". Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Daily Mirror
'Swooping seagulls who steal your food need pity not hate'
Birding expert Stuart Winter reveals the sad reason that seagulls have become such seaside pests, brazenly stealing food from out of people's mouths A family beach picnic serenaded by lapping waves and lilting gull cries was hardly the time or place for a half-term lesson on seabird ecology. My three grandchildren's eyes began glazing over the moment I started lecturing them on why our most maligned birds should be loved not loathed. Mention of the dreaded S-word had put me in a flap after the trio witnessed a holidaymaker being relieved of a doughnut by a demonic creature with evil eyes and razor-sharp beak – a seagull! 'Gull, we call them gulls! Never, never seagulls!' I pontificated with the same zeal I had once reprimanded an American for having the temerity to say soccer rather than football. Standing all schoolmasterly atop a rocky Norfolk breakwater, I explained how herring gulls with their silvery, ink-tipped wings were things of beauty but, sadly, now a Red List Species of Conservation Concern after a 70% UK population crash since the 1970s. Diminishing food resources because of landfill site closures and reductions in fish discards along with the scourge of bird flu is making survival tough for a creature that has become a pariah for its liking of fast-food scraps. As my afternoon sermon came to an end, all eyes turned to a smoky grey shape gliding elegantly above our heads. 'Gull!' The grandkids declared in unison, each waiting for approval at their correct bird identification. Time for another lecture. Pointing out the stiff wings and rotund body shape of the bird coasting leisurely over the shallows, I declared that rather than a gull we were watching a fulmar – the closest thing to an albatross patrolling British waters. Mere mention of an albatross, the mighty wanderer of storm-lashed southern oceans and ancient rhymes, had them captivated. So close was the fulmar I could point out features shared with its legendary relation: tube-shaped nostrils to distil sea-water and the ability to projectile vomit foul-smelling stomach contents to deter predators. After all the sermonising, I didn't have the temerity to admit that fulmar derives from 'foul seagull' in Old Norse! Can you recognise the wren's song The rock concert season is upon us but the sound of silence has descended on a countryside slouched in summer stillness. Warblers are no longer warbling and cuckoos have called their last. Nightingales have been put on mute. Exhausted robins are resting voices while replenishing feathers worn ragged by the labours of parenthood. Although spring's dawn chorus is a fading earworm, one headbanger still blaring out dawn to dusk is arguably nature's most powerful vocalist by weight to sound. The Eurasian wren, a chocolate-coated, ping pong ball of a bird with a sticky up tail and barrow boy's gape, has a voice that defies its diminutive proportions. Weighing a mere nine grams, the male marks his territory with a 90 decibel song as loud and powerful as a rock drum solo that's audible from a kilometre. Yet there is more to the wren's rat-a-tat song than the five-second paradiddles belted out without respite. Each of its verses contain more than 100 individual beats, many in the high frequency 7-8 kHz range, and repeated incessantly every month of the year. Rudely woken by the proclamations of a particularly raucous wren outside the bedroom window at 4am last week, I was reminded of the first lines of Walter de la Mare's beautiful poem, Jenny Wren: Of all the birds that rove and sing, Near dwellings made for men, None is so nimble, feat, and trim, As Jenny Wren. Wrens have gender identification issues across different cultures. In Germany, they take on a masculine persona and are called Zaunkonig, or Hedge King. Here in Britain, the bird was given the affectionate moniker of the Jenny Wren in the 1640s, largely because of a long-held belief the species was the female partner of the robin. While ear-splitting males are the headline act, one wren vocalisation noted in literature that I would love to hear is the lullaby whispered by mother wrens when incubating eggs or tending fledglings. The gentle sounds are said to be reminiscent of distant twittering swallow song.
The Independent
3 days ago
- The Independent
Air traffic controllers in Florida briefly lost radar after fiber optic line was cut
Air traffic controllers in Florida briefly lost their radar Friday after a fiber optic line was cut, but the outage didn't lead to disruptions like what happened after similar outages around the Newark, New Jersey, airport this spring. Controllers were able to continue directing planes across five states in the Southeast because a backup system kicked in as designed. The Federal Aviation Administration said no flights were disrupted. The FAA said the radar center in Jacksonville, Florida, continued operating but on alert status because its primary communication line went down. A contractor was working on repairing the severed fiber line Friday afternoon. Authorities didn't specify what caused the severed fiber line or where it happened. The FAA didn't say exactly how long the radar was offline, but when air traffic controllers in a different facility in Philadelphia lost radar twice this spring it took 90 seconds for their systems to reboot after the system went down. Those incidents led to major disruptions at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey because five controllers went on trauma leave after those outages, and that facility in Philadelphia directs planes in and out of the airport. Hundreds of flights had to be cancelled in Newark because the remaining controllers couldn't safely handle every flight on the schedule. Operations at that airport have since improved significantly An FAA spokesperson said there was 'no loss of critical air traffic service' in Jacksonville because the backup system kicked in. That center is responsible for planes flying across roughly 160,000 square miles of airspace across most of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina. The problems in Newark were blamed on the failure of aging copper wires that much of the nation's air traffic control system still relies on. Transportation officials said the Newark problems demonstrated the need for a multi-million-dollar overhaul of the system that they are lobbying Congress to approve.
