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Five bodies found in plane wreckage in California orchard crash
Rescuers pulled five bodies from the wreckage of a small plane that crashed into an orchard in central California after vanishing from radar, local and federal authorities said on Sunday.
Rescuers pulled five bodies from the wreckage of a small plane that crashed into an orchard in central California after vanishing from radar, local and federal authorities said on Sunday.
The Federal Aviation Administration was trying to determine what caused the crash that killed five people, Kern County sheriff’s Sgt Mark King said. He expected the names of the victims to be released on Monday.
Air traffic controllers lost contact with the single-engine Piper PA32 around 4pm Saturday as it headed from Reid-Hillview Airport in San Jose to Henderson Executive Airport in a Las Vegas suburb, FAA spokesperson Ian Gregor said.
The plane sent a mayday call. Searchers spotted the wreckage southwest of Bakersfield about three hours after receiving an alert from the FAA about a missing plane that was last detected an estimated 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of the city, the Kern County sheriff’s office said.
A meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford said it was rainy and cloudy in the area south of Bakersfield around the time the plane dropped off radar.
A National Transportation Safety Board investigator also was on site Sunday, Gregor said.
FAA records list an address for an owner of the plane. A woman who answered a number listed for that address would only say that her husband used to be part owner of the plane but sold his share.
