NBC 7 obtained chilling audio of the last words a pilot exchanged with air traffic control before he crashed into a hill in La Jolla Wednesday night a few feet away from homes.
Pilot: "We're running out of fuel."
Air traffic control: "OK, how much fuel do you have left?"
Pilot: "Very few. Ten minutes."
The pilot, who has not been identified, was concerned about his fuel levels and told air traffic controllers he needed to make an emergency landing. That was at around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday night. The pilot had taken off earlier that evening from Buchannan Field in Concord, California. Soon after, his fuel tank was empty.
Pilot: "We lost all our fuel so we have to make an emergency landing."
Air Traffic Control: "... and are you completely out of fuel?"
Pilot: "Affirmative"
Pilot: "What heading do you want?"
Air Traffic Control: "Go eastbound, 90 heading, there’s a runway a mile-and-a-half off your right. Turn to the east. Turn to the east."
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Controllers tried to divert the pilot to MCAS Miramar and the base was advised about a plane in need of a runway, but it never made it. SDPD said it had received reports of a single-engine Cessna that lost communications with local air traffic control, but it took them several hours to find the wreck on a bank near La Jolla Village Drive and Gilman Drive.
NBC 7 spoke to a woman who lives just above where the plane crashed. She wished not to be identified by name.
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"My brother said, 'This is your lucky day, go buy a lottery ticket,'" she recalled looking down at the mangled plane.
Despite being steps away from the crash, she said she and her neighbors heard nothing. They found out about the crash when they saw it broadcast on the morning news.
"It was lucky for me and my neighbors. Really lucky," she said.
NTSB investigators spent much of Thursday morning and afternoon documenting the crash. After nightfall, they wenched the plane off of the bank, dismantled it into smaller pieces and loaded it onto flatbeds to be hauled away. Licensed helicopter pilot Grant Katzenellenbogen watched it unfold.
"When you are in a situation, you do what you can," he said. "A couple feet higher and he would hit a house based on his flight path. A couple feet lower, still vegetation. In his flight path, he could have hit anything."
The NTSB hasn't shared many details about the crash, but we know the investigation is focusing on the pilot, the plane and the weather conditions.
NTSB investigator Paul Basti said the pilot failed twice to land at Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport in Kearny Mesa. It was rainy and foggy when the Cessna went down, but Basti couldn't confirm if the weather caused the pilot to crash into the hill.
"We don’t have any information on any discussions with the dispatcher right now. What we are doing is looking to gather only the factual evidence," he said. “We’re not able to comment on how the airplane performed in this environment."
The Cessna will soon be on its way to Phoenix crash lab where the plane will be dissected to determine the probable cause of this tragedy.
The NTSB says it will release its preliminary report in two weeks. The final report isn’t expected for another 18 months.
