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Title: 2 die in plane crash near Taft

Filed: 03/27/2000

By AMY WHITE Californian staff writer e-mail: awhite@bakersfield.com

A small plane crashed south of Taft Monday, killing two people aboard and scattering debris more than 200 feet in one direction.

The occupants  who appear to be a man and a woman  had not been identified Monday night, police said.

Witnesses said the RV-6  a single-engine experimental plane  came down nose-first with no engine sound at about 3:15 p.m. Monday.

"It looked just like something falling from the sky; it didn't even look like an airplane," Taft police Capt. Bob Lane said one witness reported.

A man working on an oil rig heard the impact from a half-mile away, Lane said.

The impact spread debris 200 to 250 feet south of the crash site, located in an area of foothills and sagebrush near Petroleum Club Road about three miles east of Highway 33, Lane said.

"It looks like a wadded up piece of paper," Lane said of the plane. "There are small parts everywhere."

No one on the ground was injured. An oil pipeline struck by the plane when it hit was moved about two feet but did not rupture, Lane said.

Officials believe the home-built craft may have been flying out of Hayward and headed to Van Nuys, said Ray Bishop, director of the Kern County Department of Airports.

The plane went off the radar screen two to three miles south of the Taft Airport, after the pilot declared an emergency to air traffic controllers, Bishop said. Officials did not know the altitude at which the plane was flying when it disappeared.

Lane speculated that the plane may have run out of fuel because there was no sign or spillage of fuel at the site and nothing burned after the impact.

The pilot could have been heading for the nearby roadway or been in a landing pattern for the Taft Airport when the crash occurred, he added. The plane crashed about two miles south of the airport in an area with no homes or businesses nearby.

Officials on Monday could not identify the specific plane that crashed because the craft was so badly damaged they could not find its identifying numbers, said Federal Aviation Administration operations officer Louis Diaz.

"If there are numbers, they could be crumpled or underneath," Lane said.

Kern County coroner's investigators were expected to return to the scene today, and to be joined by FAA and National Transportation Safety Board officials in a further effort to determine identity of the victims and cause of the crash.

Officials had not determined Monday night which of the two people was the pilot or whether there might have been more than two people in the plane, Lane said. Petroleum Club Road was expected to be closed through today as officials continue to investigate the scene, he said.

Copyright) 2000, The Bakersfield Californian

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-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), March 28, 2000