The wreckage of a small plane sits in the parking lot of shopping center Wednesday afternoon, July 30, 2014, in San Diego. Police said that one woman was killed and one hurt in the crash. (AP Photo//UT San Diego, David Brooks)SAN DIEGO – A small plane crashed in a San Diego shopping center parking lot Wednesday, killing an 80-year-old woman who was the lone passenger and injuring the pilot, authorities said.
The single-engine 1988 Mooney M-20L went down around 5:30 p.m. in a parking lot that serves a Costco and a Target store in the Kearny Mesa neighborhood.
The plane bounced while landing at nearby Montgomerey Field, continued westbound and went down, said Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
However, helicopter pilot Vince Carter said he had taken off from the field when he heard the pilot, in apparently her last radio transmission, tell the control tower that she had lost power on takeoff.
“She said she lost power and she was going down and that was it,” he told KFMB-TV.