MONTEREY—Two people aboard a twin-engine propellor airplane died Tuesday morning after the small aircraft slammed into a home in Monterey off of Highway 68.
Eric Gutierrez, a safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, confirmed Wednesday that two people died when the Golden Eagle Cessna 421 crashed in the Monterra community just south of the Monterey Regional Airport around 10:40am.
The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office has not yet released the identities of the two people killed in the crash.
According to KION, family members confirmed that Mary Ellen Carlin of Pacific Grove owned the plane.
Monterey County Regional Fire District spokesperson Dorothy Priolo said a home was fully engulfed with flames after the crash, and that about one-eighth of an acre caught fire.
Gutierrez said that no one was inside the home at the time of the crash.
He added that the plane was taking off from Monterey en route to Sacramento. Once it passed through a cloud layer around 700 feet and was climbing to 1,900 feet “the aircraft started to descend.”
Gutierrez said it was too early in the investigation to know why the plane suddenly plunged to the ground.
The FAA is helping the National Transportation Safety Board investigate the incident, Priolo said.
