The three passengers who perished on Monday in Big Bear when the little plane they were riding in crashed have been identified. The three passengers have been identified as Robert Carty, 79, of Lake Havasu, Arizona, Jimmy Fitzpatrick, 62, of Perris; and Stormie Seibold, 60, of Temecula.
Around 2 pm on Monday, crews responded to a crash report at Paradise Way and Maltby Boulevard intersection in Big Bear. According to the NTSB’s preliminary inquiry, the single-engine Beechcraft A36 crashed in a tiny field about a mile east of Big Bear Airport, which is believed to have been the plane’s destination. On the ground, nobody was hurt.
Given the number of homes in the area, Battalion Chief Luke Wagner of the Big Bear Fire Department said there were no fires or structural damages.
To ascertain what caused the incident, the NTSB is aggressively looking into the crash location, air traffic communications, radar data, weather reports, and interviewing potential witnesses.
Here is a tweet related to this topic:
The three passengers who were killed when the small plane they were on crashed in Big Bear on Monday have been identified.https://t.co/sEIBBfg7C1
— KTLA (@KTLA) May 3, 2023
Ryan Goss, the general manager of Big Bear Airport, stated, “We watched it on YouTube but couldn’t get an actual visual account of the debris until I saw it up close. It was a really bad crash.
According to reports, the pilot issued a distress signal, but Goss said Big Bear Airport didn’t receive it. He said, “As far as we know, we did not hear or receive any distress call here at the Big Bear Airport before the incident.”
