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Accident investigation report completed and information captured
Narrative: On February 6, 2018, about 0654 Pacific standard time, a Cessna 182T airplane, N3525T, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Santee, California. The pilot and passenger were fatally injured. The airplane was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. The pilot filed a visual flight rules flight plan departing from Gillespie Field Airport (SEE), El Cajon, California, at 0645, with a destination of Elko Regional Airport, Elko, Nevada. The airplane departed runway 27R. Four witnesses in the surrounding area reported low-level fog, and one witness reported visibility about 1 mile. A video recorded by a witness showed the airplane in a climb enter fog, and a short time later, it reappeared exiting the fog in a descending left turn headed in an easterly direction toward the airport. The nose of the airplane pitched up, but the airplane continued to descend out of view of the camera and below the rooftops of several buildings. The airplane impacted a glass industrial storage facility about 3/4 mile west from the airport. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) chart supplement, the SEE control tower opened at 0700 and was not in operation at the time the airplane departed; however, an off-duty air traffic controller in the tower witnessed the accident and called 911. One witness, a pilot who was performing a preflight check on his airplane at the time, reported that he heard the accident airplane start up and watched as it took off from runway 27R. He stated that the airplane departed the runway surface before the intersecting runway and appeared to have pitched to a higher than typical climb rate, similar to a takeoff at the maximum rate of climb, and the engine sounded normal while in the climb. The witness estimated that the accident airplane entered the fog bank about 500 ft AGL. Shortly thereafter, he heard a drastic increase in the airplane's engine rpm. One witness near the accident site reported that he heard the engine suddenly turn off and saw the airplane rock back and forth while another witness stated that the engine sputtered when the accident airplane was flying north. Witnesses reported that when the airplane was turning east, which was back toward the airport, it had a nose-high attitude. One witness at the accident site storage yard observed the airplane about 100 ft AGL as it descended in a nose down and left-wing low attitude to ground impact.