Divers Seek 3rd Victim of Air Crash
Divers continued to search Wednesday for a third victim of a Christmas Day plane crash off San Onofre State Beach that killed an Inglewood woman and critically injured the pilot, authorities reported.
Coroner’s investigators in San Diego identified the dead woman as Celine Muhammad, 29, whose body was found floating in the ocean about 600 yards from the south end of San Onofre.
U.S. Coast Guard officials said the pilot was Jamul Muhammad, 26, of Los Angeles. He remained in critical condition Wednesday at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, where he was admitted with severe hypothermia.
Authorities did not confirm whether the two people were related.
Search-and-rescue divers from Camp Pendleton on Wednesday found the wreckage of the Cessna 172, which apparently crashed into the sea about 3:15 p.m. Tuesday and flipped over.
The single-engine plane had taken off from McClellan-Palomar Airport near Carlsbad and was headed to Hawthorne Airport. Authorities said a third person was believed to be aboard the four-seat Cessna, but divers failed to find anyone in the wreckage Wednesday.
The cause of the crash has not been determined, said Howard Plagens, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator. The NTSB is attempting to recover the wreckage.
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