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L.A. Small Planes Crash Kills 4

Story Filed: Monday, February 07, 2000 3:39 PM EST

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Two small airplanes collided Monday, sending one craft crashing and burning onto a golf course and the other into trees across a freeway. At least four people were killed.

Golfer Danny Garza said he ran for his life.

``All I hear is like an explosion, and as I look up I see this plane coming straight down and it looks like it got entangled in some telephone wires,'' Garza told KNBC-TV. ``And from then on I just kept running, thinking that these telephone wires were going to fall on me.''

One plane hit on the sixth hole of Cascade Golf Course, in the Sylmar section of Los Angeles about 25 miles northwest of downtown. The other fell on the opposite side of Interstate 5, the main north-south route between northern and Southern California.

Several shaken motorists pulled over to the side of the freeway.

``I thought it was an air show,'' said Gus Echeverri, who was driving to work. ``Then he spiraled down, nose-dived and clipped the power line. I saw it when it hit the (golf course), and there was a big ball of fire.''

Fire Capt. Steve Ruda said there were at least four dead, two from each plane. No one on the ground was hurt, authorities said.

Rescuers were checking beneath the debris for more bodies, and were also searching for a body in nearby hills, officials said.

``Witnesses are saying that someone may have fallen out of one of the airplanes,'' Fire Department spokesman Bob Collis said. ``Firefighters are trying to confirm that report.'' Dogs were brought in to assist in the search.

Neither plane reported problems beforehand, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kirsti Dunn said.

Both planes had been in contact with the nearby Van Nuys airport, Dunn said. One, an experimental plane, had told the tower there that it was heading for the airport, but when air-traffic controllers answered, the plane did not respond, Dunn said.

It was unclear where the other plane, a Bellanca Citabria, was headed, Dunn said.

Golfer Peter Seldran said he and others heard a loud bang then saw a red plane crash across the freeway. The other plane came down just 20 feet away, he said.

``It was real scary,'' Seldran said. ``We felt the debris come down. Some parts of the wings came down close to us.''

Copyright ) 2000 Associated Press Information Services, all right reserved.

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 07, 2000

Answers

Wow Dee, how did u make all of that blue? hehe

-- Kyle (fordtbonly@aol.com), February 07, 2000.

Back to html 101. LOL sorry 'bout that guys.

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 07, 2000.

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Feb 7, 2000 - 08:18 PM

Two Small Planes Collide Over L.A.; 4 Killed

By Cadonna M. Peyton, Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Two small planes collided over Los Angeles Monday, one crashing in flames on a golf course and the other falling into trees near a freeway. All four people aboard were killed.

No one on the ground was hurt.

Two men were killed in the plane that plunged through power lines and landed on the golf course, and a couple believed to be in their 60s died in the other plane, which fell into trees near busy Interstate 5, said Fire Department spokesman Bob Collis.

Golfers on the sixth fairway at Cascades Golf Club scattered as burning debris fell out of the sky over the San Fernando Valley.

One group of golfers was talking about last week's Alaska Airlines crash off the Southern California coast when the planes collided overhead about 9:50 a.m.

"We heard a loud popping sort of sound," said Jeff Childers, 50. "It immediately exploded on the lines, then fell to the ground and burned intensely. You could smell the seat materials and fuel burning."

The single-engine Bellanca Citabria, was patrolling oil pipelines between Bakersfield and Los Angeles when it collided with the couple's Questair experimental plane, said George Petterson, investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board.

The Citabria is a high-wing plane, and the Questair a low-wing aircraft. Petterson said it is possible that the combination made it difficult for the pilots to see each other.

"A wing does block your view, and it is a seen-and-be-seen concept of flight," Petterson said.

NTSB investigators were trying to determine altitude information about the planes and recover a flight recorder, Petterson said.

Both planes contacted Van Nuys Airport just before they collided about nine miles north of the airport, Petterson said. The Questair pilot told controllers the plane was going to land there, but it had not yet been given clearance at the time of the crash, he said.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kirsti Dunn said neither pilot reported problems before the crash.

Van Nuys Airport, in the heart of the San Fernando Valley, is considered the world's busiest general aviation airport with nearly 607,000 flight operations last year, according to the city airport department. About 730 aircraft are based at Van Nuys.
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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), February 07, 2000.