Its been 13yrs and I’ll never forget this accident I witnessed
I would like to know who I can contact to provide additional eyewitness details about this accident that I witnessed 13 years ago.
https://www.baaa-acro.com/crash/crash-cessna-525a-citationjet-cj2-santa-monica-4-killed
After all these years, I decided to look up the final accident report for this accident that I witnessed while standing at the viewpoint at Santa Monica Airport, watching planes land. I left soon after the fire department arrived and assumed the FAA would determine what had happened. However, it appears they never concluded the true cause and instead blamed the pilot. I also read elsewhere that the passengers’ families later sued the pilot’s family for their deaths. I believe I may have been the only independent eyewitness to this accident.
What I witnessed was the Cessna touching down on the runway. The brakes were applied, as they normally are during landing, but about halfway down the runway I saw and heard the aircraft’s nose wheel explode. The nose of the plane then lifted into the air for a couple of seconds before coming back down. The aircraft then slowly veered toward the hangars, crashed into one of them, and exploded into flames.
I know my eyewitness statement can’t change what happened that day, but perhaps it could provide the families with some additional information and, hopefully, a measure of closure.
Posted Jul 5, 2026, 8:56 PM UTC