Girl, 9, Killed as Speedboat Plows Into Crowded Beach

A 9-year-old girl was killed and another person was injured Sunday when a speedboat went out of control and crashed into a bank lined with spectators during a national drag boat racing championship at Irvine Lake in Orange County, authorities said.

The second day of the two-day Coors’ Championship Drag Boat competition continued after the accident.

Screaming spectators scattered as it became apparent that the boat was veering toward them, witnesses said. The 1,200-horsepower race boat was traveling about 45 m.p.h. when it ran ashore about 12:30 p.m., a quarter of a mile or so beyond the finish line, according to spectators.

“There were lawn chairs and people flying all over the place,” said Richard Eppler, 23, of Whittier, who was sitting with a group of friends only 10 feet away when the accident happened. “It was brutal.”

The dead girl, who was thrown about 50 feet by the impact, was identified as Brandy Branchflower of Burbank, according to Robert Brown, press spokesman for Irvine Lake. An unidentified person was treated at the scene, Brown said.

15 Feet From Shore

Witnesses said the girl’s mother and a sister had gone to get food immediately before the accident. They had been sitting in lawn chairs about 15 feet from the shore.

The hydroplane-style drag boat, “High Anxiety,” driven by James Lange of Simi Valley, cut diagonally across the beach before coming to rest. Lange was shaken, but otherwise unhurt.

“I just had time to pick up my kid and run back,” said Kelly Evans of Downey, who ran out of the path of the boat. “I thought everyone else did the same.”

A marine engineer is expected to examine the boat today. Most of the crowd had stayed between the start and finish lines, where a fence ran along the shore. There was no fence in the area beyond the finish line where the boat crashed.

Whether the location where the girl and other spectators stood was an unauthorized area was not immediately clear, according to race officials. Thomas Indovani, legal counsel for the National Drag Boat Assn., said unauthorized areas along the shoreline had been roped off. However, spectators who had arrived after the accident were allowed to view the race almost in the same location just 50 feet west.

Indovani said that Lange had deployed his parachute after the run and was decelerating, although he did not know how fast the boat was traveling when it struck the shore.

This was the latest in a series of boat-racing accidents in recent years at Irvine Lake, located 40 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles in a semi-rural area of Orange County.

Three spectators were injured when a high-speed boat swerved out of control during another Coors-sponsored drag race on April 9, 1983, crashing into the bank and throwing debris into a crowd of onlookers. Earlier the same day, two racing boats flipped over at the finish line in separate qualifying heats of the Coors Western Championship of drag boat racing. One driver was not seriously injured, but the other, Barry Zenkova, 36, of Westminster was killed.

On June 24, 1984, James Hobbs, 41, of San Bernardino was fatally injured when his hydroplane drag boat flipped at more than 180 m.p.h. and ejected him during a qualifying run of the Summer Championships of Drag Boat Racing.

Appeared to Be Struggling

According to spectators Sunday, the driver appeared to have trouble controlling the boat after it finished its high-speed run.

Times staff writers Marcida Dodson and David Reyes and photographer Tom Kelsey contributed to this story.