The four people who were killed in an air ambulance crash in California on Dec. 27 have been identified as two nurses and two pilots, local media reported.
The four people were killed when the small jet they were in crashed and burst into flames in El Cajon, a suburb of San Diego.
The plane, a Learjet 35A, had flown a patient to Arizona from Orange County, CBS 8 reported. It crashed at around 7 p.m. on its way back to its home base in Gillespie Field in El Cajon, CBS 8 reported.
Two of the people on board were flight nurses, and the plane seemed to be carrying a medical crew who worked for an air ambulance company based in El Cajon, NBC News reported.
One of the nurses was identified as Tina Ward, the wife of former Oceanside Fire Department Deputy Chief Joe Ward, according to a Facebook post. The other was Laurie Gentz, who had been a local union president for the International Association of EMTs and Paramedics, Fox 5 reported.
The plane took down several power lines in the area, and the crash left one home damaged, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
“There is very little left of the aircraft,” Fire Chief Don Butz of the Lakeside Fire Protection District told the Times of San Diego. “We weren’t able to find any survivors.”
The fire was put out by around 9 p.m., the San Diego Sheriff’s Office said in a Tweet.
Residents in the neighborhood where the crash occurred shared videos on social media of cars on fire and debris in the street amid clouds of smoke, CBS 8 reported. Neighbors who saw the inferno said they knew there was no help they could offer.
“I opened the door — a big ball of fire rumbled and it knocked me back,” Bridget Spain, a resident near the crash site, told CBS 8. “I was really scared and trying to get out — thinking the fire was right here.”
A pilot can be heard screaming expletives moments before the crash in air-traffic control recordings, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
According to an initial evaluation by the National Transportation Safety Board, the pilot of the jet changed their landing plan, requesting to land on a different runway as the jet approached its home base at Gillespie Field, Fox 5 reported.
They also changed from an “instrument approach” to a “visual approach,” relying less on a path determined by navigation tools and more on what they saw going on outside of the aircraft, according to Fox 5. The plane ultimately crashed about 1.4 miles from the runway.
The severe weather at the time may have also played a part, nearby resident Justin Dow told CBS 8.
“It was super foggy. It was raining, it was raining really bad when he went down,” he told the outlet.
Federal investigators with the NTSB are currently trying to determine what happened, according to a statement provided to the Times of San Diego.
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