Fire extinguished at scene of Santa Monica Airport crash

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Santa Monica firefighters monitor the collapsed aircraft hangar where a private jet crashed and burned Sunday evening at Santa Monica Airport. Investigators will have to lift the hangar’s metal roof off the burned aircraft to determine how many bodies are inside. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

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Santa Monica firefighters look through burned debris at the back side of an aircraft hangar where a private jet crashed and burned Sunday evening. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

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Firefighters battle a blaze at Santa Monica Airport that began when a small jet veered off the runway and crashed into a hangar. The fire spread to two other buildings. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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A firefighter works to extinguish a fire in a collapsed airplane hangar at Santa Monica Airport that began when a twin-engine Cessna Citation crashed into it after landing Sunday. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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Firefighters work to extinguish a fire at the site of the plane crash at Santa Monica Airport. (Ringo H.W. Chiu / Associated Press)

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Firefighters work to extinguish fire at the site of the plane crash at Santa Monica Airport on Sunday. (Ringo H.W. Chiu / Associated Press)

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The wing of a plane is visible as firefighters investigate while continuing to extinguish a fire after a twin-engine Cessna Citation crashed into a hangar after landing at Santa Monica Airport. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

By Laura J. Nelson

Sept. 29, 2013 11:43 PM PT

Authorities said late Sunday night that the fires that damaged three buildings at Santa Monica Airport after a business jet crashed there have been extinguished.

The crash occurred about 6:20 p.m. Monday, when a twin-engine Cessna Citation coming from Hailey, Idaho, veered off the right side of the runway and crashed into a nearby storage hangar. Both the structure and the jet burst into flames, officials said, and the hangar collapsed.

A Santa Monica Fire Department official at the scene told reporters that there could not have been any survivors. The jet holds up to eight people, according to Cessna and registration information.

The hangar fire burned at a higher temperature than most because jet fuel was involved, fire officials said. The flames then spread to two hangars nearby and caused minor damage.

The temperature and the collapsed hangar made it difficult to access the wreckage or read its tail number, sources told The Times, which made it difficult to identify those on board.

Local authorities have turned the investigation over to National Transportation Safety Board officials who arrived in Santa Monica on Sunday. The federal agency expects to start investigating the wreckage Monday morning.

The Santa Monica Fire Department dispatched six fire engines and four ambulances, but none took victims to hospitals, spokeswoman Bridgett Lewis said.

The Cessna business jet is registered to Creative Real Estate Exchange LLC, according to the firm’s website. The owner of the plane lives in Malibu but is not named in FAA records.

The plane had made eight flights since Sept. 15, according to flight tracking websites, including four between Hailey and Santa Monica.

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laura.nelson@latimes.com