A small jet that took off from Idaho ran off the runway and into a storage hangar at a Southern California airport on Sunday night, causing the hangar to collapse in flames around it, officials said. 
 
 Firefighters work to extinguish fire at the site of a plane crash in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday, September 29, 2013. Authorities say a twin-jet Cessna Citation went off the right side of the runway... (Associated Press) 
 
 Firefighters work to extinguish fire at the site of a plane crash in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2013. Authorities say a twin-jet Cessna Citation went off the right side of the runway and... (Associated Press) 
 
 Firefighters work to extinguish fire at the site of a plane crash in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday, September 29, 2013. Authorities say a twin-jet Cessna Citation went off the right side of the runway... (Associated Press) 
 
 Firefighters work to extinguish fire at the site of a plane crash in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2013. Authorities say a twin-jet Cessna Citation went off the right side of the runway and... (Associated Press) 
 
 Firefighters were still contending hours later with the smoldering ruins of the building and the plane at Santa Monica Municipal Airport, and had yet to determine how many people were inside the jet that can hold eight passengers and two crew members, but it was unlikely anyone was alive inside. 
 
 "This was an unsurvivable crash," Santa Monica Fire Department Capt. John Nevandro said at a media briefing at the airport. 
 
 The twin-engine Cessna Citation that had taken off from Hailey, Idaho, went off the right side of the runway at about 6:20 p.m. and struck the hangar, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said. 
 
 The blaze did minor damage to two other buildings and destroyed the hangar. 
 
 "It was a total loss," Fire Department spokeswoman Bridgett Lewis said. 
 
 News helicopter footage showed all but the tail of the plane trapped under a collapsed section of the small hangar. 
 
 Neither aviation nor rescue officials were yet able to say how many people were aboard the plane, nor whether anyone was inside the hangar. 
 
 A crane would be required to remove the remains of the hangar, and investigators were unlikely to be able to get to the plane until Monday, Gregor said. 
 
 A plume of smoke rising above the airport could be seen in the twilight sky over the populous neighborhoods surrounding the airport in the hours after the crash. 
 
 After hearing a loud boom, several neighbors ran toward the airport and saw the fire. 
 
 "It was very, very terrifying, it was sad to see just so much smoke, and the building collapse and the loud boom, you just put it all together and it's scary," witness Alyssa Lang told KABC-TV. 
 
 Witness Charles Thomson told the TV station the plane appeared to make a "perfectly normal landing" before veering off course. 
 
 The jet, a Cessna 525A manufactured in 2003, is registered to a Malibu, Calif. address and its corporate owner, Creative Real Estate Exchange, is based in Birmingham, Ala., and Atlanta, according to FAA public records. 
 
 Phone messages left after hours at the real estate company's two offices were not immediately returned. 
 
 The National Transportation Safety Board would take over the investigation as is routine in such crashes. 
 
 Santa Monica Airport, located in the coastal tourist destination known for its trendy bars, restaurants and wooden-pier carnival, is home to many private jets, many of them used by wealthy Southern Californians from the entertainment industry. 
 
 The airport in Hailey serves Idaho's Sun Valley resort area, which is a frequent destination for many celebrities, and the rich and powerful alike. ||||| Authorities said late Sunday night that the fires that damaged three buildings at Santa Monica Airport after a business jet crashed there have been extinguished. 
 
 The crash occurred about 6:20 p.m. Monday, when a twin-engine Cessna Citation coming from Hailey, Idaho, veered off the right side of the runway and crashed into a nearby storage hangar. Both the structure and the jet burst into flames, officials said, and the hangar collapsed. 
 
 A Santa Monica Fire Department official at the scene told reporters that there could not have been any survivors. The jet holds up to eight people, according to Cessna and registration information. 
 
 The hangar fire burned at a higher temperature than most because jet fuel was involved, fire officials said. The flames then spread to two hangars nearby and caused minor damage. 
 
 The temperature and the collapsed hangar made it difficult to access the wreckage or read its tail number, sources told The Times, which made it difficult to identify those on board. 
 
 Local authorities have turned the investigation over to National Transportation Safety Board officials who arrived in Santa Monica on Sunday. The federal agency expects to start investigating the wreckage Monday morning. 
 
 The Santa Monica Fire Department dispatched six fire engines and four ambulances, but none took victims to hospitals, spokeswoman Bridgett Lewis said. 
 
 The Cessna business jet is registered to Creative Real Estate Exchange LLC, according to the firm's website. The owner of the plane lives in Malibu but is not named in FAA records. 
 
 The plane had made eight flights since Sept. 15, according to flight tracking websites, including four between Hailey and Santa Monica. 
 
 ALSO: 
 
 Small plane crashes into hangar at Santa Monica Airport 
 
 Officials: Fire not contained after crash at Santa Monica Airport 
 
 Pilot injured when plane crashes onto Rancho Palos Verdes beach 
 
 laura.nelson@latimes.com
– A twin-engine Cessna Citation jet smashed into a hangar at Santa Monica Airport last night in a crash and fire officials say was "unsurvivable." The jet, arriving from an elite skiing area in Idaho, veered off the runway and crashed into a storage hangar, sparking a blaze that collapsed the hangar and damaged two other buildings, reports the Los Angeles Times. It's not clear how many people were on board the jet, which can carry a maximum of eight passengers and two crew members, the AP reports. The flames have been extinguished.