This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Long Beach, Calif. • A twin-engine plane has crashed and burned at Long Beach airport.
Six people were aboard, with five being killed and one being taken to a hospital, according to the Press-Telegram of Long Beach.
Developers Jeff Berger and Tom Dean and community advocate Mark Bixby, a member of one of Long Beach's founding families, died in a plane crash today at Long Beach Airport.
Dean spokesman Mike Murchison confirmed the deaths, and he said in a brief conversation that he had heard another passenger, Mike Jensen, is in critical condition at Long Beach Memorial Hospital.
That leaves the identities of two other victims still unknown.
Ian Gregor of the Federal Aviation Administration says the Beechcraft King Air was taking off for a trip to Salt Lake City when it went down at about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday.
The plane is owned by Thomas Fay Dean, a California developer who owns most of the Los Cerritos Wetlands in southeast Long Beach, his spokesman Mike Murchison confirmed to the Press-Telegram.
However, Murchison said he didn't yet know who was on the plane and whether Dean was among the passengers. He said he hadn't been able to get hold of Dean by telephone.
The plane was engulfed in flames. Televised reports showed the plane's wings and half its fuselage sitting on a grass median between two runways. The tail was gone and there's a long skid mark across the grass.
The Associated Press and the (Long Beach, Calif.) Star-Telegram contributed to this report.