Canoga Park Pilot, 2nd Victim Identified
The Los Angeles County coroner’s office Friday identified two people who died Tuesday in a home-built plane that crashed shortly after takeoff from Van Nuys Airport.
The pilot was identified as Joseph N. Ofria, 56, a self-employed contractor from Canoga Park. The passenger was Shawna Karam of Santa Paula, whose age and occupation were not available, said coroner’s spokesman Bill Gold.
Witnesses to the crash said the single-engine Glasair lost power, stalled and went into a spin. It crashed on a sod farm and burned one-eighth of a mile from the end of the runway, missing by 50 feet an unoccupied Federal Aviation Administration building that houses navigational equipment, the witnesses said.
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board are studying the plane’s wreckage in an effort to determine the cause of the crash.
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