Investigation continues into plane missing off San Diego coast

Montgomery-Gibbs Airport. (File image courtesy City of San Diego) A National Transportation Safety Board investigation is underway Thursday after a four-seat plane owned by Peter Schultz — a chemist and chief executive of the Scripps Research Institute — went missing while piloted by a friend who was reported unresponsive while en route to San Diego Montgomery-Gibbs Airport. The plane, a single-engine 2014 Cessna T240 Corvalis TTx, took off from Ramona Airport Sunday afternoon and is presumed to have been destroyed after crashing into the Pacific Ocean about 470 miles off the coast of San Diego, according to the Aviation Safety Network, a global database for tracking accidents. Around 1:55 p.m. Sunday, the pilot checked in with Montgomery-Gibbs tower for landing. About five minutes later, he was cleared to land at runway 28R, but he gave no response, and the airplane continued flying west at an altitude of 2,600 feet and continued beyond the track, the ASN reported. The identity of the pilot has not yet been released, but according to a statement from the Scripps Research Institute, he was a friend of Schultz and believed to be the solo occupant of the plane. No survivors or remnants of the plane were immediately reported.