Plane nosedives, crashes in parking lot killing five in California

A shot of the crash of
Cessna 414 in Santa Ana, California on Sunday, August 5th,
2018.

CBS Los
Angeles/Youtube

• A small twin-engine plane nosedived and crashed into a
  Santa Ana, California parking lot on Sunday while trying to
  make an emergency landing, killing all five people on
  board. 
• The NTSB has launched an investigation into what may
  have caused the crash. 
• Three of the victims worked at the same Danville,
  California real estate firm, Pacific Union. 

  ---

A small twin-engine plane crashed from out of the sky into a
Santa Ana, California parking lot on Sunday while trying to make
an emergency landing, killing all five people on
board.  

According to the Federal
Aviation Authority’s Twitter page, the crash happened shortly
after 12:28 p.m. local time. The pilot of the twin-engine
plane, Cessna 414,
declared an emergency landing prior to the event. 

Orange Country Fire Capt. Tony Bommarito
told NBC News that the plane had left Concord,
northeast of San Francisco and was it trying to land at John
Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, only 1 1/2 miles away. Peter
Knudson, a spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety
Board (NTSB), told
NBC that the plane had been given approval to land
at John Wayne after the pilot declared an emergency. The
NTSB has launched an investigation into the cause of the
incident. 

“We are in the preliminary stages and we will be examining
all of the facts that could lead to a situation like that,” an
NTSB investigator said during a press conference on
Monday. 

According to the Orange County Fire Authority, the plane
struck a parked car, but the driver was inside a store and
was not harmed. The crash occurred inside a parking lot of the
3800 block of Bristol Street, fire authority spokesman
Stephen Concialdi
told the Los Angeles Times. 

On Monday,
as reported by the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County
coroner’s office identified the victims as: Scott Shepherd, 53,
of Diablo, Lara Shepherd, 42, of Diablo, Nasim Ghanadan, 29, of
Alamo, Floria Hakimi, 62, of Danville and Navid Hakimi, 32, of
Los Angeles.

Floria Hakimi, Nasim Ghanadan, and Lara Shepherd worked as
Realtors at the same Danville, California real estate consulting
firm, Pacific Union. Pacific Union shared a statement by CEO Mark
A. McLaughlin to Business Insider that reads:

“Our entire Pacific Union family is mourning the loss of our
colleagues, family, and friends. We ask everyone to join us in
respecting the privacy of all immediate family members during
this time. Life is precious and we are focused on comforting the
loves ones affected by this devastating event.”

According to the statement given to Business Insider, Lara
Shepard’s husband, Scott Shepard, was the pilot of the plane, and
both were lost in the crash. Floria Hikimi’s son, Navid Hakimi,
was killed in the crash along with his mother. 

According to
her company profile, Lara and Scott are survived by their two
children. 

The Los Angeles Times reports FAA records show that
Category III Aviation Corp., a real estate consulting firm in San
Francisco, was the owner of the plane. The company did not
respond to the Times’ request for comment. 

On Monday, CBS This Morning
released a video showing the plane take a direct and
fast-moving nose-dive downward before disappearing from sight and
crashing:

Photos posted on social media show the devastation caused by the
crash.