Autopsies Show 3 Men Drowned In Newport Beach Plane Crash
NEWPORT BEACH (AP) — Autopsies on three men killed in a small plane crash drowned after the aircraft hit the water near Newport Beach.
Orange County coroner's officials said Tuesday that pilot Charles Alfred Chambers and his friends Russell Urban and Sean Kelley drowned after the plane landed upside-down in Upper Newport Harbor.
The men were heading from Calexico on the U.S.-Mexico border to Torrance on Sunday when Chambers reported a fuel problem to air traffic controllers at John Wayne Airport.
Police tried to clear a street as an impromptu landing strip, but the 1968 Beechcraft Musketeer crashed into the water. Officers and firefighters tried to cut the men out of their seat belts before the plane submerged, but they were already dead.
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