Northridge Lawyer Handled Air-Crash Cases : Dead Pilot Known as Skilled, Careful Flier

The pilot killed Wednesday night when his light plane crashed into a San Fernando Valley residence was identified Thursday as Lewis M. Brody of Northridge, a lawyer whose specialties included air-crash litigation.

Brody, 41, died when his Piper Aerostar crashed into a residence at 9545 Ruffner Ave. in Sepulveda.

Ken Ashton, 38, the only occupant of the house, was watching television in the living room. He escaped from the burning building with minor injuries by diving through a blown-out window. No one else was hurt. The house was reduced to rubble.

Brody went down at 6:58 p.m. as he was attempting to take his disabled plane into Van Nuys Airport, Audrey Schutte, head of the National Transportation Safety Board team investigating the crash, said Thursday. The cause of the crash will probably not be known for several weeks, she said.

On Thursday, Schutte supervised the removal of the wrecked plane from the charred site. About two dozen spectators stood on the street and sidewalk. A neighbor said Ashton had stood silently among the onlookers for a while.

Called Safety-Conscious

Brody was an experienced, safety-conscious pilot who had survived being shot down while an Air Force flier in Vietnam, according to Jeffrey Matz, Brody’s partner in the Encino law firm of Matz, Brody & Albert.

In the past five years, Brody had handled 12 cases involving airplane crashes, Matz said. He said the firm on Thursday retained such a specialist who will study Brody’s crash with an eye toward a lawsuit.

Matz said the Aerostar in which Brody died was owned by the law firm. Brody flew it several times a week, always taking along the battered khaki flight bag he had carried in Vietnam. Like his colleagues, he referred to the plane, in aviators’ jargon, by its registration number--Triple Seven Papa Lima (777PL).

“Flying was his first love,” Matz said. “He used to tell me if he couldn’t fly as part of his law practice he wouldn’t practice law. He’d be a professional flier instead.”

Brody lived with his wife, Bonnie; a daughter, Lauren, 5, and a son, Jason, 3.

Matz said Brody was flying back from Costa Mesa when the accident occurred.

“He was covering a deposition in Orange County,” Matz said. “He flew down there in the middle of the day and started back about 6:15.

“He called our office just before leaving the airport, and he called his wife to say he was on his way. It’s about a 16-minute flight.”

The NSTB’s Schutte was asked for specifics of Brody’s last flight. “Some of these things I could never know unless I was in the cockpit with him,” she said. “And, thank God, I wasn’t.”

Matz tried to reconstruct the flight, based on his knowledge of the route and a police officer’s report of witnesses’ accounts.

“He was flying from John Wayne Airport back to Van Nuys, where we kept the plane,” Matz said. “When he got over the Encino Reservoir--according to witnesses, there were about 15 witnesses--he called ‘Mayday’ and said he was losing power in his right engine.

“The tower flew him around to the north end of the airport. As he was making the U-turn to land, he had to bank the plane, and about that time the right engine caught on fire. In order to get in faster, he pushed the left engine to the firewall. That means pushing the accelerator all the way to the floor. When he did that, the plane stalled, and it just went straight into a house.

“He used to tell me, if you’re going to lose an engine, you don’t want to do it on final approach because you’re very close to the ground, and you don’t have much time or room to make a correction.

“He must have had 900 hours in on that plane. He’s flown in bad weather. He’s flown in icing conditions. Everybody who had contact with him in the aviation business always praised him for his competence.”

Engineering, Law Degrees

Brody had a degree in mechanical engineering from California State University, Northridge, and a law degree from the University of San Fernando. The affable redhead took an engineer’s pleasure in keeping the Aerostar in top-flight condition, Matz said.

“He was meticulous about that plane,” Matz said. “He personally supervised all the maintenance. He took pride in knowing how each and every item on that airplane worked. Being an engineer, he was capable of understanding all the devices on that plane. And he always did an extremely thorough pre-flight check.”

Matz said Brody’s family members were frequent passengers on the plane, as were his law partners.

“In fact, I was supposed to be on Wednesday’s flight,” he said. “I was sick with the flu.”