Corona Man Also Dies : Big Bear Airplane Crash Kills 3 County Residents

A twin-engine airplane suddenly lost power and plunged into a stand of pine trees on approach to Big Bear City Airport on Thursday afternoon, killing all four people aboard, three from Orange County, authorities said.

The Cessna 310, which took off from Corona Municipal Airport, was descending behind a smaller airplane when it lost power at 500 feet and went into a tailspin, crashing just 150 yards from homes on the eastern shore of Big Bear Lake, according to Jim Bryant, a spokesman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

The occurred at 1:34 p.m. “No one at the scene saw anyone alive in the wreck,” Bryant said. “It appeared the people died on impact.”

The victims were identified as Ted Raymond Hill, 51, of Buena Park, the pilot; Robert Charles Fenrich, 54, of Anaheim; Ted Tucker, 35, of Anaheim Hills, and Manard Witherspoon, 31, of Corona.

Three of the men were employees of Coldwell Banker in Anaheim Hills, according to Bud Harter, a San Bernardino coroner’s official. Hill, the pilot and airplane owner, was a business agent for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union in Los Angeles, according to his son, Brian, 23.

Tucker and Hill were close friends, and the other two men were co-workers of Tucker at Coldwell Banker, Brian Hill said. The men were flying to the mountain resort for an afternoon lunch. His father had recently based his Cessna at the Corona airport, the son said.

The aircraft was registered to Hill at a Santa Ana address, authorities said.

Fenrich’s son, Eric, said in a telephone interview late Thursday that family members did not know his father had planned an airplane trip Thursday.

“We didn’t even know he was flying,” Eric Fenrich said, adding that his father used to work for an airline and flew frequently. He said that the men probably were on a business trip at the time of the crash.

The four-seat airplane, painted tan with dark brown trim, was badly mangled and its identification number partially destroyed, Bryant said.

Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board arrived at the scene by sheriff’s helicopter at about 6 p.m. to begin their investigation, a sheriff’s dispatcher said.

Authorities were first notified of the incident on the 911 emergency line, Bryant said.

Within minutes, authorities were at the crash site, situated only a mile from a Big Bear sheriff’s substation, Bryant said.

No one on the ground was reported injured. The plane crashed a mile southwest of the airport near Eagle Point in the only open space in the immediate area, Bryant said, missing Bear Valley Community Hospital by less than a quarter of a mile.

The plane did not burn.

At first, authorities believed only three men had died in the crash. But the fourth body was discovered a short time later underneath the wreckage, Bryant said.

Dewey Richardson, manager of the Big Bear airport, said he wasn’t working when the plane crashed, but that he was told it was an older model Cessna, probably built in the late 1960s.

Big Bear City Airport, a general aviation facility, has no tower with a flight controller, Richardson said. The small airport has a 5,850-foot runway and is home to about 155 private aircraft, with about 25 landings and takeoffs on an average weekday.

Brian Hill described his father as a dedicated pilot, who, after receiving his license five years ago, immediately began flying several times a week. “He flew all the time,” Hill said. “Instead of eating lunch, he’d take an hour break to fly his plane.”

Hill said he cannot understand how the Cessna could have suddenly lost power in both of its engines and crashed.

He said he learned of the tragedy after his stepmother, Janelle Hill, called to say that she had heard a radio report and hoped it was not his father’s plane.

Hill said he immediately turned on a television set at his workplace in Mission Viejo and saw a news report on the crash. A close-up picture of the engine cowling showed a hand-painted sign that he immediately recognized.

“I knew it was his plane,” Hill said.