Training Flight : Crash Victims Identified as 2 Norco Men

Two Norco men who died Tuesday in a light-plane crash in south Corona were apparently on a training flight from Chino Airport, investigators said Wednesday.

Roger Dean Barnett, 41, and Joseph William Kirchgesler, 34, died in a single-engine Cessna 150L that went down in an orange grove near Valencia Road and Lester Avenue in the Santa Ana foothills, about a mile west of Interstate 15, the Riverside County coroner’s office said.

The plane’s engine was driven three feet into hard ground by the impact, said Jean Pyatt, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board.

Barnett owned and operated Chino Air Service, a flight-instruction business based at Chino Airport, said Jim Welton, air traffic manager at the airport.

He was certified by the Federal Aviation Administration as a mechanic, a commercial pilot and a flight instructor, Pyatt said. Kirchgesler held no federal flying license, Pyatt said.

“I am making an assumption, unless I learn otherwise, that it was probably an instructional flight,” she said.

The pair had not filed a flight plan before taking off from Chino at 10:16 a.m., about half an hour before the crash. “We didn’t have any communication with the aircraft after he departed here,” Welton said.

Unrestricted Visibility

Flying conditions were “very nice” Tuesday morning, he added. “It was a beautiful day: . . . clear skies, unrestricted visibility, winds were light.”

A witness saw the aircraft spinning as it plunged nearly straight downward to the ground, Pyatt said. Her preliminary investigation had not determined if the airplane had lost power at the time of the crash.

There was no fire at the crash scene, said Ben Blair, battalion chief for the Corona Fire Department.

Corona police found Kirchgesler sitting in the aircraft’s pilot’s seat, according to a police report, and Barnett in the passenger’s seat. The Cessna 150 has dual controls, however, and is a popular plane for teaching novice pilots to fly, Pyatt said.

Pyatt’s investigation will continue, she said, and will be reviewed in about six months by a five-member panel in Washington to determine the cause of the crash.