NTSB Report: California Airport Incident Sees Plane Land, Take Off, and Roll Over Prior to Fatal Crash

The single-engine Cessna that crashed near French Valley Airport on July 4, killing its pilot, briefly touched down before climbing about 60 feet high, rolled over and then crashed, according to the preliminary National Transportation Safety Board report on the accident released on Thursday, July 20.

Temecula chiropractor Jared Alan Newman, 39, was pronounced dead at the scene. Three of his young sons who were aboard suffered broken bones and other injuries but were recovering, their mother wrote on a GoFundMe page.

The report did not explain why the events that led to the crash happened. That information, if it can be determined, would be provided in the final report that an NTSB spokesperson said would be issued in one to two years.

Surveillance video showed that just before 2 p.m., the single-engine Cessna 172N airplane touched down on the runway, rolled for about 2 seconds and then lifted off, the report says. At 60 feet, the airplane banked left.

“The airplane rolled inverted and then disappeared from view of the camera behind a building,” the report says.

A witness told the NTSB that the airplane appeared “unstable” as it came in. The witness heard the engine rev just before it took off again and said the aircraft’s flaps were fully deployed as it climbed toward a group of buildings.

“As the airplane neared the group of buildings, its wings rocked back and forth, and the flaps started to retract,” the report says.

The airplane disappeared from sight and the witness heard a loud sound. It came to rest near a 50-foot-tall building, which had marks on it that indicated it was hit by the plane, the report says.