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Search Underway For Small Plane Reported Down In The Ocean Off Of Santa Barbara Airport

(Santa Barbara County Fire Department photo by Mike Eliason)
A Coast Guard helicopter searching for a light plane reported down in the ocean off of the Santa Barbara County coastline Sunday morning.

Authorities are searching for a light plane believed to have crashed in the ocean off the Santa Barbara County coastline.

The small plane is reported to have taken off from Santa Barbara Airport just after 7 a.m. Sunday, and gone down about two and a half miles off the coast.

Coast Guard and Santa Barbara County helicopters have been searching the area by air, along with County Fire Department watercraft, and a City of Santa Barbara Harbor Patrol boat.

Mike Eliason, with the Santa Barbara County Fire Department, says the search area is directly off of Goleta Beach, and in line with one of the airport's runways.  There's no word on how many people might have been on board the light plane.

Lance Orozco has been News Director of KCLU since 2001, providing award-winning coverage of some of the biggest news events in the region, including the Thomas and Woolsey brush fires, the deadly Montecito debris flow, the Borderline Bar and Grill attack, and Ronald Reagan's funeral.