Twin-Engine Plane Makes Crash Landing on Seal Beach Blvd.

A passenger suffered minor injuries Sunday evening when a twin-engine Beechcraft made a forced landing on Seal Beach Boulevard in Seal Beach, clipped a telephone pole and tree, tearing off its wing as its gear collapsed, and then skidded to a stop over the curb, authorities and witnesses said.

The pilot, identified as Douglas Ascarrunz, 27, was uninjured, but a female passenger, Karen Okada, 31, was treated for shoulder pain at Los Alamitos Medical Center, Orange County Fire Department and hospital officials said.

Okada was listed in good condition, hospital supervising nurse Lindy Beck said.

The cause of the forced landing was not immediately known, though witnesses said the plane was obviously in trouble as it circled and “sputtered” before landing about 7:30 p.m. amid light auto traffic in the southbound lanes of Seal Beach Boulevard near Golden Rain Road.

Fire officials said the leased plane had departed from Torrance but was registered at Santa Monica Municipal Airport.

“I saw it circle above my house really low and sputter like it was out of gas,” said Robert Bornshein, 22, who lives in Los Alamitos, about two miles north of where the plane landed.

“We looked up in the sky where it was going down and saw this big flash of light,” Bornshein said.

At the main guard gate of Leisure World on Seal Beach Boulevard, security guard Art Meyers said he was “standing out there guarding when it went by.”

‘He Made a Loop’

“I saw him fly over and . . . he made a loop and I thought he was going to drive right in here,” Meyers said. “I almost was ready to ask him for his pass.

“It (the plane) was sputtering and he was in trouble.”

The plane was still in the air as it came by the guard gate and nearly struck the large globe mounted in front of the Leisure World entrance, Meyers said.

As the Beechcraft touched down, south of the guardhouse and just out of sight, “I just saw a big flash,” Meyers said. “He’s just lucky the traffic was fairly light.”

The county Fire Department’s mini-crash unit and an aircraft crash truck from the nearby Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center responded to the scene, as did the Fire Department’s hazardous waste team.

Although a small quantity of fuel leaked from the aircraft, fire spokesmen said, there was no fire or explosion.

Investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration were investigating the incident late Sunday.