A small private jet crashed Saturday in the Pacific Ocean, about 40 miles west of Crescent Bay after an emergency call for help, killing two people on board.
The National Transportation Safety Board said the plane was a Viking Air DHC-6-400 Twin Otter, traveling from the Santa Rosa-Sonoma County airport to Honolulu.
Small, turbine aircraft listed on aviation websites are common range about 700 milesbut FAA records show the plane was fitted with a container system to allow for longer flights.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the plane took off from Santa Rosa around 8:20 a.m., but turned around toward a small public runway in Half Moon Bay, and crashed at 2:15 p.m.
Tracking by Flightradar shows the Twin Otter turbofan turning around 10:40 a.m. and returning to Santa Rosa until about 1:15 p.m., when it turned toward Half Moon Bay and began descending. . Fifteen minutes later it went down.
The US Coast Guard out of San Francisco issued a 1:40 p.m. warning about a “small plane crash” southwest of the Farallon Islands and advised beachgoers to look for those on a yellow life raft.
National Transportation Safety Board spokeswoman Sarah Taylor Sulick said the US Coast Guard had located the sunken plane and confirmed the pilot and co-pilot were seriously injured. She said there were no other passengers on the plane and NTSB investigators were working to salvage the plane.
The identities of the pilot and co-pilot have not been released. The NTSB said it was still determining ownership of the plane.
The plane was blocked by its owner from public flight tracking services.
