six people aboard a jet died after crashing and burning in a field near an airport near Los Angeles on Saturday.

 

As of July 8, Reuters: On Saturday, a tiny jet carrying six people crashed and burnt in a field close to an airport in the Los Angeles area, according to local and federal police.

The Cessna C550 corporate jet, which was departing from Las Vegas, crashed at roughly 4:15 a.m. near French Valley Airport in Riverside County, which is located about 85 miles (137 km) south of Los Angeles.

Elliott Simpson, an aviation investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, said during a news briefing that the deceased passengers and pilot were all adults.

According to Simpson, a marine layer weather phenomenon was settling over the area when the privately owned jet attempted an instrument landing and crashed 500 feet off the runway at the little airport.

According to him, the circumstances looked to have met the prerequisites for an airport landing.

A small plane carrying four people crashed just a few days earlier, on July 4, in close proximity to the same airfield, killing the adult pilot and injuring three children, according to police.

After the plane crashed on Saturday, all but the tail caught fire, according to Simpson.

Burnt debris in the form of a little aeroplane was visible in a blackened area of a field across the street from the airstrip in aerial footage from the local media.

There was only one business jet travelling from Las Vegas to French Valley at the time, according to radar data from the flight tracking website FlightAware. Before diving, its aircraft made a single circle close to the field.

Six passengers were declared dead at the scene, according to the sheriff's office in Riverside County, where the French Valley Airport is located, and officials responding to the disaster discovered an aircraft completely consumed in flames in a field.

More findings from the NTSB's investigation into the collision are anticipated in the following two weeks, according to Simpson. The deceased's names were withheld by him.

(In paragraph 4, it should now read 500 feet instead of 300 feet.

Editing by Diane Craft and Alistair Bell; reporting by Brad Heath in Washington, Ismail Shakil in Ottawa, and Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento.