general aviation

The aircraft was headed for Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport, a general aviation airport owned by the city of San Diego and located less than three miles from the crash site.

And it has served to amplify complaints from residents near the facility, which had 300,000 flights take off and land in 2021, and is the nation’s busiest general aviation airport — where private planes and charters operate, but not scheduled commercial flights.

"We will never compromise on border security and carry out robust security checks on those arriving into the UK, including both scheduled and notified general aviation flights," he added.

The director-general of Border Force, Phil Douglas, said security checks were carried out on all arrivals of private jets, known as "general aviation" by officials.

Mr Pursglove said UK Border Force performed checks on "100% of scheduled passengers arriving in the UK and risk-based intelligence-led checks on general aviation".