SAN DIEGO (AP) - Authorities say a pilot has been killed in the crash of a small plane about a half-mile from a San Diego airport.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor says the Cirrus SR-22 went down shortly after takeoff from Montgomery Field Wednesday.
Police Sgt. Robert Hawkins says the pilot was killed. Nobody on the ground was hurt.
The San Diego County Medical Examiner later identified the pilot as 61-year-old Dr. John Harvey of Del Mar.
Hawkins says the crash shortly after 6:30 a.m. happened on a dirt patch in a construction site between several buildings in the Kearny Mesa area.
He says the plane’s built-in parachute deployed but didn’t help because the aircraft didn’t reach a high enough altitude.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.
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