NTSB Launches Investigation Into Peninsula Small Plane Crash
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (KCBS) - At least three people were killed, including one believed to be the founder of an East Palo Alto steel company, in a plane crash in Redwood Shores Thursday afternoon.
A woman's body was recovered from a lagoon just north of Twin Dolphin Drive, where the small plane crashed at about 11:50 a.m., and two bodies were still trapped Thursday afternoon at the bottom of the lagoon under the wreckage, fire Battalion Chief Dave Pucci said.
The bodies were still laying on the bottom of the lagoon in about five or six feet of water as of about 4 p.m., Pucci said.
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He said the plane's position made it impossible to determine the genders of the other two victims, but an employee at R.E. Borrmann's Steel Co. said the company's founder, Bob Borrmann, was on the plane when it went down.
"It's a tragedy to lose three lives like this," Pucci said.
An article posted on the company's website from the online magazine In Flight USA identifies Borrmann, who is in his 90s, as a World War II veteran who founded the steel company after the war.
The twin-engine Beech 65 Queen Air had taken off from the nearby San Carlos Airport and was headed to San Martin, Pucci said.
It crashed into the water about 30 seconds after taking off, FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford said.
The article on the steel company's website says Borrmann bought a Beech Queen Air that once belonged to the king of Denmark.
Firefighters responded to the crash and found an approximately 40-year-old woman in the water near the wreckage. She was taken to shore and pronounced dead, Pucci said.
A dive team from the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office arrived at the scene shortly before 1 p.m. to search the water, he said.
The other two bodies won't be recovered until representatives of the National Transportation Safety Board are able to investigate the crash.
Board officials were on their way from Seattle Thursday afternoon, Pucci said. Their full investigation will likely take at least 24 hours, but it's not clear when in the process the bodies can be removed.
