Global Courant 2023-05-02 06:14:05
Three people aboard a small plane were killed Monday after it crashed into a residential area in Big Bear about a mile from the city’s airport, authorities said.
The plane — a single-engine Beechcraft A36, according to the Federal Aviation Administration — crashed into a field near the intersection of Paradise Way and Maltby Boulevard at about 2 p.m. Big Bear Fire Department posted on Twitter.
Witnesses described a “loud bang” followed by a gruesome wreck.
“I couldn’t believe what I saw,” said Mike Hanson, who lives about two blocks from the crash site and landed on the wreckage minutes after the plane crashed. “(It looked like) they were just swept across the landing to the airport, and just, bam, into the ground.”
Hanson said he immediately stopped and rushed to help another neighbor search for survivors.
“He and I yelled at the plane, ‘Is anyone still alive?'” Hanson said. “And he turned to me and shook his head.”
Airport authorities could not immediately comment on details of the crash, the second fatal crash of a small plane in a residential neighborhood in Southern California in three days. One person was killed in the crash of a single-engine plane near Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles on Saturday night.
Hanson, who lives directly under the flight path of Big Bear City Airport, believes it was a failed landing.
“It was heading in the direction that all planes make their final approach today, heading west from east,” he said. “I heard two planes just landed in the same flight pattern in the last 20 minutes.”
Big Bear is home to some of Southern California’s most popular ski resorts. The small airport sees a lot of weekend and holiday traffic, as well as military exercises during the week, Hanson said.
