- Air-traffic control repeatedly told a pilot who crashed into a San Diego suburb to climb.
- The air-traffic controller told the pilot he was losing altitude and said, “I need you to fly.”
- A flight instructor said he believed the pilot, Dr. Sugata Das, was “totally disoriented.”
At least two people were killed and two injured after the Cessna 340A plane crashed shortly after 12 p.m. local time in the city of Santee, California, about 20 miles northeast of San Diego.
The plane struck two homes and a UPS delivery truck — the driver of which was killed — and multiple homes and vehicles near the site of the crash were engulfed in flames. Dr. Sugata Das, a cardiologist who owned and operated the plane, was also killed in the crash, the Arizona Republic reported.
The air-traffic controller warned Das that he was still losing altitude and told him, “I need you to fly.”
“OK. It looks like you’re descending, sir,” the controller said. “I need to make sure you are climbing, not descending.”
“Low altitude alert. Climb immediately. Climb the airplane. Climb the airplane, please,” the controller said. “Maintain 5,000. Expedite the climb. Climb the airplane, please.”
Robert Katz, a certified flight instructor, told KFMB-TV, the local CBS affiliate, that he believed Das “was totally disoriented.”
“In my opinion, he is clearly disoriented at that point,” Katz said. “He does not know which way is up and he is just along for the ride. And so is anyone else on board that plane, unfortunately.”
Al Diehl, a former National Transportation Safety Board investigator, told the Associated Press that it appeared to him that Das seemed to be dealing with a distraction or issue onboard but didn’t communicate it to air-traffic control.
“The first thing you do when you’re in trouble is call, climb and confess — and he did not do any of the three,” Diehl said. He added that failing to do so violated the “very basic rules that flight instructors tell their students.”
Officials from the Federal Aviation Administration said they, along with the National Transportation Safety Board, would investigate the incident, which includes reviewing flight communications that occurred before the crash.
“The NTSB will be in charge of the investigation and will provide additional updates,” the FAA said in a statement on Tuesday, citing a report by CNN. “Neither agency identifies people involved in aircraft accidents.”
The plane was headed to San Diego from Yuma, Arizona, officials said, but an issue on the plane prompted the pilot to attempt to land at Gillespie Field in El Cajon, California, less than five miles away from the crash site, reported KNSD, the San Diego NBC News affiliate.
In a recording posted by LiveATC, a website that tracks and monitors flight communications, an air-traffic controller asked Das if he was aware the aircraft was drifting off course.
“It looks like you’re drifting right of course, are you correcting?” the controller said on the recording, to which Das responded, “Correcting.”
