Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Plane That Crashed Was Out of Fuel : Aviation: Investigators say they don’t know why the pilot lost control. Six died when the Cessna nose-dived in Lancaster.

Federal investigators have concluded that a plane that crashed nose-first in Lancaster, killing all six people aboard, had run out of fuel, but have no explanation for why the pilot lost control of the twin-engine Cessna 310, the supervisory investigator said Thursday.

Radar data the investigators reviewed this week indicate the plane flew toward Las Vegas, Nev., after leaving the Grand Canyon in Arizona on Sunday before heading back on their ill-fated flight toward Southern California. It was initially believed the plane was flying directly back to Van Nuys after departing the Grand Canyon.

Also on Thursday, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office released the names of the six victims, confirming that two brothers and a teen-age sister from the same Agoura Hills family were killed in the Sunday night crash. All six victims were Israeli-born.

Scott Carrier, a coroner’s office spokesman, said the positively identified victims are Israel Feldman, 34, of Sherman Oaks, who is believed to have been piloting the plane at the time of the crash; Orit Mor, 30, Feldman’s fiance; siblings Oren, 27, Alon, 21, and Tali Amrani, 16, of Agoura Hills; and Daphna Zachar, 27, of Studio City, believed to be Oren Amrani’s girlfriend. Mor, who had been visiting from Israel for the past several months, and Feldman were to be married Aug. 8.

The six victims were returning Sunday to the Van Nuys Airport from a pleasure trip to Las Vegas, where they spent Saturday night, and the Grand Canyon when the plane spiraled at high-speed to the ground in Lancaster.

The crash occurred about six miles southeast of Fox Field, a small county-owned airport, said Don Llorente, a supervisory air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board. The Cessna 310 had requested landing instructions from the Fox Field control tower about a minute before the crash but did not indicate there was a problem.

Radar data NTSB investigators reviewed this week showed that there was a four-hour gap between the time the rented plane left the Grand Canyon and crashed in Lancaster, at about 8 p.m., Llorente said. The flight between the two locations is usually only 75 minutes.

It appears, based on the radar information, that the Cessna flew back toward Las Vegas although Llorente said it has not been determined if the plane landed in that city before flying to California.

It is known that Feldman purchased 20 gallons of fuel in Las Vegas on Saturday, probably on the aircraft’s arrival, and another 15.4 gallons of fuel at the Grand Canyon airport. It is unknown for certain how much fuel the aircraft had when it departed Van Nuys on Saturday, although the plane’s owners said the tanks were full with 130 gallons of fuel. A plane’s fuel efficiency is measured in flight hours based on the plane’s weight, load, flying altitude and weather conditions such as wind.

For some time before the crash, both engines were getting their fuel from the right-side fuel tank, Llorente said, indicating that the left tank was the first to run out of fuel.

Even without fuel and the power it provides, it is possible to glide an airplane to a landing, he said, noting that the question that will probably never be answered is, “Why did he lose control?”

At the time Feldman lost control of the six-seat plane, it was flying at an altitude of 5,330 feet, or about 2,600 feet above Lancaster. The last two times the plane was detected by radar before the crash shows the aircraft dropped 700 feet in less than 4.5 seconds, Llorente said. That descent rate is equivalent to the plane dropping toward the ground at about 106 m.p.h.

Chevra Kadisha Mortuary in Los Angeles is arranging for the bodies to be flown Sunday to Israel for burial there.