LOS ANGELES – The pilot of a small plane that crashed on departure from Catalina Airport last month, killing all five people on board ignored a warning from the island’s airport manager that the flight would be unapproved because of the darkness, according to a preliminary report released Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The twin-engine Beechcraft 95-B55 crashed shortly after takeoff from Catalina Airport in Avalon around 8 p.m. Oct. 8, according to the NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration.

The aircraft went down about a mile west of the airport.

They were killed in the accident Haris Ali, 33, of Fullerton; Margaret Mary Fenner, 55; Ali Reza Safai, 73, of West Hills; Joeun Park, 37; and Gonzalo Lubel, 34.

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According to FAA records, the plane was registered to Safai, who previously was a flight instructor at the now-defunct Santa Monica Aviation, based at Santa Monica Airport.

Catalina Airport is open from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM and aircraft operations are generally prohibited at all other times as it is not equipped with airfield lighting.

According to the preliminary NTSB report released Wednesday, on the afternoon of Oct. 8, a flight instructor and two student pilots were preparing to take off from Catalina Airport in a chartered single-engine plane, but the aircraft suffered a “magnet failure during preliminary flight” that prevented departure. The group contacted the flight school from which the plane had been rented and were told that another plane would be flying from Santa Monica Airport to Catalina to pick up the group.

The plane, apparently piloted by Safai, an acquaintance of the flight school’s owner, took off from Santa Monica Airport with one other person on board around 6 p.m. Oct. 8 and landed in Catalina about 20 minutes later, according to NTSB report. The Catalina Airport manager gave permission for the plane to land at the airfield, even though the airport was closed at the time, but instructed the pilot that the group must leave before sunset, around 6:30 p.m., according to the report.

After landing at Catalina Airport, “the pilots shut down both engines, loaded the stalled pilots and attempted to restart the engines,” according to the NTSB. “During restart, the right engine does not start due to insufficient battery power. The passengers exited the plane and an extension cord was then attached to an on-board battery charger. The pilots were advised by the airport manager that due to the time required the battery charge would extend beyond sunset so a departure after sunset would not be approved.

“The pilot/owner of the airplane informed the airport manager that he needed to depart and intended to depart anyway,” the NTSB’s preliminary report said. “The airport director informed him that although he could not stop him, his departure would be unauthorized and at his own risk.”

The plane later took off at around 20:00 and crashed a few minutes after take off.

The NTSB report does not determine the exact cause of the crash, which occurred on a ridgeline about a mile west-southwest of the runway.

Airport security video showed the plane attempting to take off in “dark night conditions,” according to the report.

“It was not possible to discern in the video whether or not the plane was airborne before reaching the end of the runway,” according to the report. “As the plane approached the departure end of the runway, it dropped out of camera view.”

The report states that flight data shows that the plane “may have become airborne around the midpoint of the runway and maintained a low altitude until it reached the departure end of the runway,” after which it descended light and a right turn, then crashed.