Six killed in small plane crash off the San Diego coast

A small plane crashed off the San Diego coast shortly after takeoff, killing all six people on board, the Federal Aviation Administration said Monday.

The twin-engine Cessna 414 crashed at around 12:30 p.m. Sunday, the FAA said. The plane was returning to Phoenix one day after flying out from Arizona, according to the flight tracking website Flightaware.com.

The Coast Guard said searchers found a debris field later Sunday about 3 miles (about 5 kilometers) off the coast of Point Loma, a San Diego neighborhood that juts into the Pacific, U.S. Coast Guard officials. The water in the search area is about 200 feet (61 meters) deep.

Although the FAA said all six people on board the plane were killed, authorities haven't identified them.

The FAA said the plane is owned by vitamin and nutritional supplement maker Optimal Health Systems. But the company based in Pima, Arizona, said in a statement that it sold the plane to a group of private individuals in 2023, meaning the FAA database could be out of date.

However, the company's founder, Doug Grant, said in the statement that, ''We personally know several of the passengers onboard and our sincerest condolences are offered to those affected by the tragedy, all of whom are incredible members of our small community.''

The FAA referred questions about the plane's ownership to the National Transportation Safety Board, which didn't immediately provide any further details about the crash.

The pilot told air traffic controllers that he was struggling to maintain his heading and climb as the plane twice turned towards shore before going back out to sea, according to audio posted by www.LiveATC.net and radar data posted by FlightAware. The controller urged the pilot to climb to 4,000 feet after he reported the plane was only about 1,000 feet in the air.

The controller directed the pilot to land at a nearby U.S. naval airport on Coronado Island, but the pilot said he was unable to see the airport. A short time later, the pilot repeatedly signaled the ''Mayday'' distress call before controllers lost radar contact.

A man who was out surfing when the plane crashed told NBC 7 in San Diego that he saw the plane come down at an angle, then climb back into the clouds before diving again and crashing into the water.

''The next time he came out of the clouds, he went straight into the water. But after I saw this splash, about six seconds later, it was dead silent. I knew that they went in the water, nose first, at a high speed," Tyson Wislofsky said.

The crash comes weeks after a small Cessna crashed into a San Diego neighborhood in foggy weather and killed six people.