6 killed in fiery plane crash in Murrieta, California

All six passengers aboard a small plane were killed in a fiery crash in Southern California early Saturday, marking the second deadly air wreck in the area this week.

A Cessna C550 business jet crashed in a field near the French Valley Airport in Murrieta, a town in Riverside County about 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles, around 4:15 a.m. local time, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

“Deputies located an aircraft fully engulfed” in flames, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.

The fire scorched nearly one acre of vegetation and was contained just after 5:30 a.m., the Riverside County Fire Department announced on Twitter.

The identities of the passengers have not yet been released.

The flight took off from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.

Heavy fog blanketed the area, which may have caused the plane to miss the runway and land in the field several hundred yards away, reported KTLA.

“The airplane crashed short of French Valley Airport during its second approach around 4:15 a.m.,” a spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board told the outlet.

The FAA and NTSB are investigating the cause of the crash. 

On Tuesday, another Cessna crashed near the same airport, killing a man and injuring three of his children.

Authorities identified the victim as 39-year-old Temecula resident Jared Newman, CBS News reported.

Newman was flying the single-engine plane with three of his kids, who sustained serious to minor injuries. He was reportedly flying the aircraft under a training license, which is prohibited by federal regulations.