A pilot and co-pilot of a Cessna A185F suffered moderate injuries Sunday after their plane crashed into a ravine between a church and a residential area in La Mesa.
The fixed-wing single engine six-seater clipped multiple power lines as it descended and power was cut to nearly 3,300 customers for about an hour. A nearby Nest video showed the plane crossing near apartments.
On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a preliminary report: “Aircraft experienced engine issues and attempted to land on a boulevard and clipped a wire, went through a parking lot and into a ravine.”
People were in the nearby Lake Murray Community Church, but no one was injured. No one on the ground was hurt, and the plane didn’t catch fire.
Across the street — in the 5700 block of Lake Murray Boulevard — are two assisted living facilities.
The plane, registered to John Brasil of Lemon Grove, took off at 2:50 p.m. from Montgomery Field and flew 12 miles before coming down at 3:05 p.m., according to FlightAware.
Cheryle Blachopoulos, who lives in an apartment near the crash, had just parked her car and saw the plane fly over the complex. She knew something wasn’t right and called to her husband to dial 911.
Blachopoulos said she heard a noise and looked up to see the plane just barely clearing trees.
“I’m like: That plane’s way too low,” she said. “Fear just swept through me. I’m like: There’s so many people (living nearby).”
She said that when she heard a big crash, “I thought that he had made it far enough to hit the church. … If the pilot would have looked over, we would have had eye contact. It was literally right here. … I’m still in shock.”
An American Medical Response ambulance was passing by and was first on scene and found two men already out of the airplane, one of them lying on the ground, according to Heartland Fire Capt. Sonny Saghera.
Within 40 minutes, the fire department used a rope system to get the pilot up the hill of the raven, but the co-pilot reported back pain and was lifted via a basket and backboard, Saghera said. The pilot suffered cuts and bruises, he said.
Both men were taken to Sharp Memorial Hospital.
Trevor Perkins of Mission Valley, who flies a plane similar to the one that crashed, said flight records show the pilot made a turn toward nearby Lake Murray just before the crash.
Perkins, a bystander at the scene, looked at the flight path of the crashed plane on his cell phone. He suggested that after the plane began having engine trouble, “It looks like they were trying to pick Lake Murray as a suitable landing spot, but they obviously didn’t make it.”
Updated at 9 p.m. July 9, 2023
