JULY 6, 2014 BY
Three people were killed Sunday morning when their plane crashed in the mountains above Lake Elsinore.
The single-engine 1967 Piper PA28 went down shortly after
9 a.m. in a rugged area above a ranch property in the 31900 block of Ortega Highway.
9 a.m. in a rugged area above a ranch property in the 31900 block of Ortega Highway.
Witnesses described seeing the small plane make a sharp turn, clip some trees and crash, causing an explosion and “a tunnel of flame” upon impact. One wing broke off and fell onto a road above the ravine where the rest of the wreckage ended up.
Riverside County coroner’s officials had not identified the victims by late Sunday, but Shelly McElroy said in a phone interview that one of the people in the plane was her nephew, Jacob Griffiths, a 32-year-old Irvine resident. She said Griffiths’ father-in-law and uncle were also on the plane, but she didn’t know their names.
“We kind of lost the whole family,” said McElroy, who lives in Riverside.
Fire and rescue personnel work at the site of a fatal plane crash in rugged terrain off the Ortega Highway above Lake Elsinore on Sunday morning, July 6, 2014. –STEPHEN WALL, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
McElroy said Griffiths was CEO of Great Scott Tree Service, a tree maintenance company based in Stanton that was started by Griffiths’ father, Scott.
She said Jacob Griffiths recently received his pilot’s license. She wasn't sure if Griffiths or his father-in-law was flying the plane, and didn't know anything about their flight plans Sunday.
Griffiths had a wife, Amanda. The couple had been married about five years, she said.
Griffiths loved doing missionary work and was an active member of Mariners Church in Irvine. He enjoyed helping the underprivileged, she said.
“He was a beautiful man with a big heart,” McElroy said. “He was a very giving, generous person. They took him way too early.”
A pastor who answered the phone at the church Sunday night said he didn’t know the Griffiths family well, but said church leaders were notified of Jacob’s death and were told that Scott Griffiths was on his way to southwest Riverside County to be with family.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said Sunday afternoon that he could not confirm the plane’s tail number, which would identify the owner, until he knew the victims’ next of kin had been notified. He also could not say where the plane was headed or where it took off.
Ed Nejad, 64, said he was standing on a dirt road on his 16-acre ranch about
9 a.m. when he saw a plane flying at a low altitude above his property and making a rough noise. About 15 seconds later, he saw the plane make a sharp U-turn, clip some trees and crash into a ravine.
9 a.m. when he saw a plane flying at a low altitude above his property and making a rough noise. About 15 seconds later, he saw the plane make a sharp U-turn, clip some trees and crash into a ravine.
“I heard a loud explosion and saw flames a couple hundred feet in the air,” he said. “It was a tunnel of flame.”
Christobal Lemus, 26, who takes care of the property, said he was inside eating breakfast when he heard a boom. He ran outside and used two fire extinguishers and a garden hose to try to put out the blaze that resulted from the crash. He said he heard a second explosion when he was outside.
Lemus said he went down into the ravine and got a few feet from the wreckage to see if anybody was alive, but couldn’t find any survivors, only charred human remains.
“It was an awful tragedy,” he said in Spanish.
Riverside County sheriff’s search and rescue personnel conducted three searches of the terrain within 100 yards of the crash site, finding no survivors or additional victims.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will be investigating.
Staff writer Aaron Claverie contributed to this report.
