Pilot in Crash Had Violated Flight Curfew

The pilot of a single-engine plane that crashed last weekend moments after taking off from Torrance Municipal Airport violated a city curfew that restricts late-night and early-morning flights.

No one was seriously hurt when the four-seater Piper aircraft slammed into a tree in the front yard of a home on Audrey Avenue, just west of Hawthorne Boulevard, shortly after 5:50 a.m. on Sunday.

Airport Manager John Cagaanan told the Torrance City Council that the pilot, who police identified as Gregory Howlind of Redondo Beach, violated the city’s curfew that restricts flights between 11 p.m. and 6:30 a.m.

Cagaanan said a letter was sent to the owners of the aircraft, South Bay Research Co. of Torrance, informing them of the violation.

Although the violation is a misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum jail sentence of six months and a $500 fine, the first offense only results in a warning because “we want to educate them,” Cagaanan said. There has never been a repeat violator, he added.

The airport manager told reporters later that one or two violations of the nighttime curfew occur each week, with more incidents in the summer than the winter.

City Council members said it was a miracle that no one aboard the plane or on the ground was killed in the crash, which sheered the wings off the plane.

Councilman George Nakano expressed concern that aircraft departing on the north runway at the Torrance Airport are straying over residential neighborhoods west of Hawthorne Boulevard, rather than following procedures and turning north over the heavily traveled street.

“We need to monitor that,” Nakano said.