An investigation into a small plane crash over the weekend off the coast of Half Moon Bay continued Tuesday with investigators now saying they believe four people were onboard.
Sources tell NBC Bay Area the pilot was Lochie Ferrier and one of the passengers was Cassidy Petit, who was a resident of Hayward.
The San Mateo County Coroner's Office on Wednesday also identified 27-year-old Emma Willmer-Shiles of San Francisco as another victim. Her body was recovered Monday morning near the crash site.
Sources said Petit was engaged to Ferrier, who graduated from MIT in 2019 with a degree in aerospace engineering.
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Ferrier worked at Magpie Aviation in Hayward, which specializes in electric aircraft.
The small plane, a Cozy MK IV aircraft, went down just after 7 p.m. Sunday, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The plane had departed from the Hayward Executive Airport.
Witnesses at the Moss Beach Distillery reported seeing the plane flying "erratically" before they lost sight of it. They also said they heard what sounded like an engine sputter out.
The San Mateo County Sheriff's Office on Tuesday spent three hours flying over Ross Cove, an area where the plane's wreckage was discovered late Sunday. An investigator with the NTSB also arrived Tuesday and is working to find a cause for the crash.
“The wreckage is the number one thing the investigators as far as finding the cause of the incident, that's what they want to look at, they want to see if it's some type of mechanical failure, or structural failure, engine failure, whatever the case may be,” said aviation consultant Mike McCarron.
Data from the FlightAware website shows a plane matching the make of the crashed aircraft took off from Hayward and toured the bay on Sunday before landing at Half Moon Bay at 5:04 p.m. The NTSB said the plane crashed about two hours later after taking off from Half Moon Bay.
McCarron said that with small aircrafts, pilots wouldn’t necessarily be talking to a tower. Instead they’d be talking to a flight follower. He adds communicating when running into problems is one of the priorities.
“Let someone know you need help and what help you need and I don't know if any of that occurred with this pilot or it came on so quickly he didn't have a chance to respond,” said McCarron.
He said that is something investigators will look at to see what happened and what can prevent this from happening in the future.
