California Plane Crash Kills 3 Tesla Motors Employees
Three Tesla Motors Inc. employees were killed on Wednesday morning when a small plane crashed in East Palo Alto, according to company chief executive Elon Musk. They withheld the workers’ identities while they worked with authorities to tell the families, he said in a statement. However, he noted that this was a tragic day for them, as the company is tightly knit.
The Cessna 310 crashed into a residential neighborhood that had been covered by fog. Aside from killing 3, the crash also ignited fires and scattered debris onto a house operating a daycare center for children. No injuries were reported on the ground, while the fires were extinguished soon after.
The plane crashed at about 7:55am - shortly after departing Palo Alto Airport. It was heading to Hawthorne Municipal Airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The site of the crash was only 1 mile from the headquarters of the electric car maker in San Carlos.
The Cessna 310 is registered to Air Unique Inc. State records indicate that the company is owned by Doug Bourn, who is said to be a senior electrical engineer for Telsa, according to a spokesman.
Harold Schapelhouman, the Menlo Park Fire Chief, said that the plane either clipped its power transmission lines and broke apart or hit a 100-foot electrical tower. This sent debris falling from the sky into Silicon Valley, he explained. One of the plane’s wings fell into the house used for the daycare, he added, while the rest hit the front retaining wall of another home before landing on 2 cars sitting in the street.