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Plane Crash in Brea Area Kills Pilot, Starts 4-Acre Blaze

Times Staff Writers

A small plane crashed Tuesday near the border of Orange and Los Angeles counties after it hit a power line, killing the pilot and igniting a 4-acre brush fire in the Carbon Canyon area northwest of Chino Hills State Park.

The victim was believed to be a 24-year-old former pilot for a radio traffic reporting network. His name was withheld until his family could be notified, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said.

The single engine Cessna 210 left Brackett Field near Pomona about 4:30 p.m. headed for Van Nuys when it struck a power line about five minutes after takeoff, said Donald A. Llorente, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator at the site.

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Several other pilots, including one who saw the crash, said the plane was being flown by a Tarzana man affiliated with the Century Aero Club in Van Nuys. For six months last year the aviator was a pilot for LA Network, which provides air traffic reports to several Los Angeles radio stations.

Positive identification was not expected before this morning, according to a spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

Initially, the Orange County coroner’s office was called to the scene when it was thought that the crash occurred within Orange County boundaries. But later Tuesday night the case was handed over to Los Angeles County authorities after it was determined the site was 150 yards inside Los Angeles County.

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Bob Miller, a member of Century Aero, said Tuesday night that club officials would not comment on the crash but would issue a statement today.

“I know there’s a lot of mourning over there tonight,” Scott Greene, a traffic reporter for LA Network and friend of the pilot believed killed in the afternoon crash, said of the air club.

The crash site, on a 440-acre religious retreat, was about 7 1/2 miles south of the airport in Los Angeles County, just outside the city of Brea, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said.

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Llorente said it appeared that the pilot struck the power line, then banked slowly to the right before crashing onto a slope about half a mile north of the snapped power line. The plane’s wing apparently struck the ground first and the aircraft flipped over and burst into flames, he said.

Llorente, who examined the plane and crash site, said he saw evidence of a “wire strike” on the propeller.

A large dirt scar could be seen on the slope face just below two water tanks, marking the spot where the aircraft wing hit. Blackened and burned grass sur

rounded the airplane. The main fuselage was gutted in the fire and crumpled wings lay to the sides.

LLorente said the pilot may have been headed for Van Nuys, followed by a second small airplane that took off from Brackett Field immediately after the Cessna.

There was no radio contact between the pilot of the airplane that crashed and the control tower moments before the aircraft went down, an airport spokesman at Brackett Field said.

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According to Greene, the pilot had flown to Corona on Tuesday to bring an airplane back to Van Nuys. During the return trip, another pilot who was following the ill-fated plane had radioed on an open frequency that he had seen the plane go down near Carbon Canyon.

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