Authorities reported that one person was killed when a single-engine plane collided with a grassy hillside above houses in a Los Angeles neighborhood during a heavy fog.
According to the Los Angeles Fire Department and Federal Aviation Administration, the Cessna C172 crashed around 8:45 p.m. on Saturday on the city’s west side, about 8 miles (13 km) southeast of Van Nuys Airport.
In the affluent Beverly Crest neighborhood, Joubin Solemani was at home with his family when they all heard a loud crash.
“We suspected a car accident. But when we turned to look outside, nothing was there. We had no idea what it was,” Solemani remarked on Sunday. Then, search and rescue personnel arrived and spread out across the hillside.
After searching for several hours in darkness and “thick ground level fog,” crews found the crash site and one person dead in the wreckage, the fire department said in a statement. The pilot was the plane’s lone occupant, the FAA said.
When the sun came up Sunday, Solemani said he could see the plane a few hundred feet (meters) above his property in the Santa Monica Mountains. “It’s totally mangled,” he told The Associated Press.
The pilot was not immediately identified. Fire department personnel recovered the body Sunday afternoon.
