5 Killed In Santa Ana Plane Crash Identified; 4 Were From San Francisco Bay Area
SANTA ANA (CBSLA/AP) — Four San Francisco Bay-area residents and a Los Angeles man were identified Monday as the five who were killed in a plane crash into a Santa Ana parking lot.
No one on the ground was hurt when a twin-engine Cessna 414 aircraft clipped an unoccupied car parked in the parking lot of a CVS store, about a mile northwest from John Wayne Orange County Airport, at about 12:30 p.m. Sunday. But all five people on board the plane were killed in the crash.
They were identified as pilot Scott Shepherd, 53; his wife, Lara Shepherd, 42; Floria Hakimi, 62; Nasim Ghanadan, 29, all of the Bay Area; and 32-year-old Navid Hakimi, of Los Angeles.
Floria Hakimi was the mother of Navid Hakimi.
Floria Hakimi, Nasim Ghanadan and Lara Shepherd was part of Bay Area real estate consulting firm Pacific Union, which released a statement.
"We are shocked and deeply saddened by the news of this tragedy. Our entire Pacific Union family is mourning the loss of our colleagues, family and friends. We have suffered a tragic loss in Danville," the statement read in part.
The 1973 Cessna was registered to San Francisco-based Category III Aviation Corp., FAA records show. It had been flown from the Bay Area suburb of Concord, FAA data revealed.
"I don't know anything about what this pilot did, or what he was thinking, but it could have been much more tragic," Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Tony Bommarito said. "This was a Sunday afternoon and we have people shopping, so the fact that we have no injuries on the ground is a miracle in itself."
An investigator says the pilot declared an emergency but didn't state the nature of his problem before a Cessna nosedived into a Southern California parking lot, killing all five people on board.
The National Transportation Safety Board's Albert Nixon said he didn't know Monday how much time elapsed between the distress call and the crash.
Nixon says the Cessna 414 struck four vehicles when it came down Sunday in a Santa Ana parking lot. Nobody on the ground was hurt.
The NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the cause of the crash.
(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
