Jet Hits Hangar at Santa Monica Airport & Starts Deadly Fire

A Cessna business jet crashed into a hangar at Santa Monica Airport on Sunday after landing at 6:20 pm. Firefighters believe it would have been impossible for anyone to survive the crash. The hangar collapsed and a high-temperature fire started. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the cause of the crash. The identities of passengers and the number of passengers on the plane at the time of the crash is unclear.

The twin-engine Cessna 525A jet is capable of holding eight passengers and two crew members. Residents in nearby homes heard an explosion and ran to the scene. Smoke could be seen above the airport for hours while the hangar burned. The plane had departed from Hailey, Idaho. It caught on fire after crashing into one hangar and the fire spread to two others. The hangar collapsed on top of the jet, and the jet will have to be uncovered using a crane.

Four ambulances and six fire engines were at the scene. Captain John Nevandro of the Santa Monica Fire Department said, “It was an unsurvivable crash.” The jet fuel caused a high-temperature blaze, and initially, firefighters could not safely enter the hangar or identify the tail number on the jet. The NTSB arrived at the scene on Sunday and is conducting an investigation. The runway is still closed and the NTSB is in the recovery stage of the process.

The jet was made in 2003, and Federal Aviation Administration records show it was registered to an address in Malibu, California and to the owner of Creative Real Estate Exchange. The company is based in Atlanta, Georgia and Birmingham, Alabama. The company has not commented on the accident. The jet has no records of previous accidents or crashes. Witness Charles Thomson, a flight instructor, said, “It wasn't an emergency landing. It was just a landing, and the tire popped afterwards.”

Last month, four people lost their lives when a Rockwell International Turbo Commander 690B crashed into two homes in East Haven, Connecticut (approximately half a mile from the airport). Additionally, two children were killed within one of the homes; their mother survived and a fire started in both houses. The plane landed upside with its nose down. It had departed from New Jersey's Teterboro Airport and was headed towards Tweed New Haven Airport. It was registered to Bill Kenningsgaard, a former vice president of sales at Microsoft. In August of last year, 70-year-old Sean McMillan died when his single-engine Cessna 210 crashed into an intersection in a West Los Angeles neighborhood (nearby Olympic Boulevard and Westwood Boulevard). A palm tree caught on fire and a wall of a home was damaged. McMillan had flow out of Santa Monica Airport and declared an emergency three miles from the scene of the crash. It is believed he was turning around to go back to the airport before crashing. McMillian was an attorney in Westchester with the law firm Greenberg Traurig and a long-time volunteer on medical flights with Angel Flights.