A National Transportation Safety Board investigation is underway Thursday after a four-seat plane owned by Peter Schultz — a chemist and chief executive of the Scripps Research Institute — went missing while piloted by a friend who was reported unresponsive while en route to San Diego Montgomery-Gibbs Airport.
The plane, a single-engine 2014 Cessna T240 Corvalis TTx, took off from Ramona Airport Sunday afternoon and is presumed to have been destroyed after crashing into the Pacific Ocean about 470 miles off the coast of San Diego, according to the Aviation Safety Network, a global database for tracking accidents.
The pilot was Tsotne Javahishvili, according to the Scripps Research Institute. Javahishvili was a close friend of Schultz and previously worked for the institute. Schultz said the two spent hundreds of hours flying together, and Javahishvili was an experienced pilot.
“Tsotne was a kind and wonderful person and a dear friend, whose great passion was flying,” Schultz said in a statement. “I’ll miss him dearly and send my deepest condolences to his family.”
Scripps Research is in the process of establishing a postdoctoral fellowship to honor Javahishvili and his work.
Around 1:55 p.m. Sunday, the Javahishvili checked in with Montgomery-Gibbs tower for landing. About five minutes later, he was cleared to land at runway 28R, but he was unresponsive, and the airplane continued flying west at an altitude of 2,600 feet and continued beyond the track, the ASN reported.
Javahishvili is believed to be the only occupant of the plane, but no official reports have been released.
No survivors or remnants of the plane were immediately reported.
City News Service contributed to this article
