Small plane crashes near Bakersfield killing five

A single-engine plane out of San Jose crashed in Bakersfield killing all five people on board, officials said.

“The aircraft is in a debris field…in an almond orchard, so it’s going to take a lot of footwork to conduct the investigation”, said Sgt. Mark King with the Kern County Sheriff’s Office. The plane sent a mayday call and searchers spotted the wreckage southwest of Bakersfield about three hours after receiving an FAA alert about a missing plane.

An NTSB investigator and two FAA inspectors were at the crash site Sunday, Gregor said.

Air traffic controllers lost contact with the single-engine piper around 4 Saturday afternoon.

The victims were not immediately identified late Sunday, but they were believed to be from the Bay area, U.S. media said. Authorities discovered five bodies in the wreckage. The Kern County Sheriff’s Office say a debris field spanning almost a quarter mile was found on Panama Lane and South Allen Road.

The FAA official added that the plane was flying from Reid-Hillview Airport in San Jose and was headed to the Henderson Executive Airport in Nevada.

As Ian Gregor of the Federal Aviation Administration told, the private plane disappeared from close to Bakersfield at around 4 p.m. on Saturday.

The investigation continues today, but it was rainy and cloudy in the area around the time the plane went off radar. It typically takes the agency months if not longer to determine a probable cause for an accident.