Runway lights weren’t working as pilot tried to land at foggy San Diego airport before fatal crash

at the site of a plane crash Friday, May 23, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

SAN DIEGO — The runway lights were out, a weather alert system wasn’t working and there was heavy fog at a San Diego airport when a pilot who had flown across the country made the decision to proceed with landing but came up short and crashed into a neighborhood, likely killing all six aboard the aircraft, investigators said Friday.

Investigator Dan Baker of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said officials will work over the next year to determine what caused the Cessna 550 Citation to crash just before 4 a.m. Thursday. The jet was carrying a music executive and five others. No one in the neighborhood of U.S. Navy housing died, but eight people were treated for smoke inhalation from the fiery crash and non-life-threatening injuries.

The pilot acknowledged the weather conditions for landing at the small airport were not ideal and debated diverting to a different airport while discussing the visibility with an air traffic controller at a regional Federal Aviation Administration control tower, according to audio of the conversation posted by LiveATC.net.

The FAA had posted an official notice for pilots that the lights were out of service, but it’s not known whether the pilot had checked it. He didn’t discuss the lights being out with air traffic control, but was aware that the airport’s weather alert system was inoperable. Ultimately, the pilot is heard saying that he’ll stick with the plan to land at Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport.

“Doesn’t sound great but we’ll give it a go,” he told the air traffic controller.

The plane crashed about two miles (3.22 kilometres) from the airport.

Baker said a power surge knocked out the weather system at the airport but the pilot was aware of the fog and an air traffic controller gave him weather information from Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, about four miles (6.44 kilometres) north.

Music talent agent Dave Shapiro, and two employees of the music agency he co-founded, Sound Talent Group, were among the dead along with the former drummer for metal band The Devil Wears Prada. Shapiro, 42, had a pilot’s license and was listed as the owner of the plane.

The two employees who died were Kendall Fortner, 24, and Emma Huke, 25, both Southern California natives and booking associates for the agency.

The crash added to a long list of aviation disasters this year while federal officials have tried to reassure travelers that flying is the safest mode of transportation, which statistics support.

Shapiro’s aircraft took off from Teterboro, New Jersey, near Manhattan, at about 11:15 p.m. local time Wednesday and made a fuel stop in Wichita, Kansas, before continuing on to San Diego. He was returning to San Diego after a band he manages, Pierce The Veil, played for a sold-out audience at Madison Square Garden.

That overnight schedule wouldn’t be allowed for an airliner under federal crew rest rules, but those regulations don’t apply to private planes.

Assistant San Diego Fire Department Chief Dan Eddy said the fog was so thick in the morning that “you could barely see in front of you.”

Former NTSB and FAA crash investigator Jeff Guzzetti said he thinks dense fog and fatigue after the pilot flew all night long were likely factors in the crash.

“This accident has all the earmarks of a classic attempt to approach an airport in really bad weather and poor visibility,” Guzzetti said. “And there were other airports that the crew could have gone to.”

He said pilots are required to check FAA posts called Notices to Airmen that alert pilots to any issues such as runway lights being out.

“It’s fairly easy for the pilot to get that information and they are required to get that information before any flight they take,” Guzzetti said.

The pilot also would have likely noticed the lights weren’t working as he descended. Without lights, procedure dictated that he should have climbed and diverted to another airport, Guzzetti said.

Fragments of the plane were found under power lines that are about a half block from the homes. It went on to lose a wing on the road directly behind the homes. Guzzetti said even if the plane had missed the power lines it may have still crashed because it was coming in too low in the fog.

A terrifying wakeup

The crash site shows more damage on the front side of homes, including a smashed stone landscaping wall and an incinerated truck that was parked across the street and shoved into the living room of its owner’s home before catching fire.

Ben McCarty and his wife, who live in the home that was hit, said they felt heat all around them after being woken up by an explosion.

“All I could see was fire. The roof of the house was still on fire. You could see the night sky from our living room,” McCarty, who has served in the Navy for 13 years, told local ABC affiliate KGTV.

Flames blocked many of the exits so they grabbed their children and dogs and ran out the back but the burning debris blocked the gate so neighbors helped them climb over the fence to escape.

“We got the kids over the fence and then I jumped over the fence. They brought a ladder and we got the dogs,” McCarty said.

Meanwhile, fiery jet fuel rolled down the block igniting everything in its path from trees to plastic trash containers to car after car.

McCarty’s home was the only one destroyed, though another 10 residences suffered damage, authorities said.

McCarty said his family used to enjoy living under the flight path so they could watch the planes pass overhead.

“Us and our kids would sit on our front porch and we’d look up and my sons would always be excited saying ‘plane plane’ watching the planes go by and ironically right where we were sitting is where that plane hit,” McCarty said.

Now, he wants to move.

“I’m not going to live over that flight line again — it’s going to be hard to sleep at night,” McCarty said.

It could have been much worse

Guzzetti said in his experience there often aren’t deaths on the ground when a plane crashes in a residential area unless people are right where the plane hits such as in Philadelphia in January.

At least 100 residents in the San Diego neighborhood were evacuated and officials said it was unclear when it would be safe for people to return.

Thursday’s crash comes only weeks after a small plane crashed into a neighborhood in Simi Valley northwest of Los Angeles, killing both people and a dog aboard the aircraft but leaving no one on the ground injured.

In October 2021 a twin-engine plane plowed into a San Diego suburb, killing the pilot and a UPS delivery driver on the ground and burning homes.

Funk contributed to this report from Omaha, Nebraska.

Julie Watson And Josh Funk, The Associated Press