Pilot Crash-Lands Near Stores After Engine Dies

John Noble got his pilot’s license only about four months ago. On Friday, he rented a plane to brush up on takeoffs and landings at Fullerton Municipal Airport.

But after one of his takeoffs, the plane’s engine died in midair, and he crash-landed on a street near a busy intersection in Buena Park, narrowly missing a strip of small businesses.

No one was injured. Noble, who was alone in the plane, walked away from the wreck unharmed.

Power Lost

The single-engine Cessna 150 lost power at about 300 feet, forcing Noble to come down on Commonwealth Avenue. The plane skidded a few feet and knocked down a row of traffic signs before coming to rest, nose down, on a curb.

Police said the cause of the crash has not been determined and is under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration.

“The airplane just stopped going,” Noble said. “I started to look around for a place to go down, and I was real lucky no one was here at that particular time. There were some cars around, but I didn’t see any in my way. So I just came down, spun around a little and hit the curb.”

The plane crashed about 1:27 p.m. near the intersection of Commonwealth and Manchester avenues. A small strip shopping center and a few homes are on the block, but police said there is very little traffic in the area after lunch hour.

Noble, 34, a Westminster lawyer, said he had spent every day this week practicing takeoffs and landings. The problem occurred minutes after the first takeoff.

Many employees in the area said they were at lunch when the crash occurred, but a few people in the shopping center saw the plane come down.

‘I Heard the Skid’

“I was working in the back, and I heard the skid,” said Richard Scott, who works for a lawn mower store a few feet from where the plane crashed. “He was hitting the brakes . . . and was heading toward the curb. I went over and asked how he was. He was real lucky.”

Astrid Hickey, owner of a costume shop next door, said she heard a noise, but no one in the store paid any attention to it.

“It wasn’t a loud noise. It was probably when the sign broke,” she said. “We didn’t know what had happened until a customer came in and told us. We enjoy having our customers come in quickly, but they don’t have to bring their planes in with them.”

There have been a number of crashes of light planes in Buena Park and nearby Fullerton in recent years, and not all residents have taken them so lightly.

Concerned about safety, several residents in Fullerton headed an unsuccessful referendum drive last year to overturn a city ordinance that, in effect, allows some small jets to use Fullerton Municipal Airport.

The same group has also complained repeatedly to city and airport authorities about low-flying planes in flight paths over the city.

Noble had rented his plane from the Aviation Clubs of Fullerton, a flight school and aircraft rental company based at the airport. The owner, Pat Bryant, said that there had been no problems with the plane and that it was the first time one of his planes has crashed since the company opened five years ago.

Noble said he does not intend to give up flying, but he doesn’t know when he will try again.

“This won’t (stop me from flying), but my wife might,” he said.