Fullerton Plane Crash Injures 2, Renews Concern

A single-engine Piper airplane carrying two women to a meeting of a female pilots’ group crashed early Friday morning in an industrial park near Fullerton Municipal Airport, injuring both women.

The plane, a Cherokee 6 with a full tank of gas, struck the corner of a warehouse in the 2300 block of Raymer Avenue, then crashed on the lawn of a warehouse across the street at about 6:40 a.m., Sylvia Palmer, a spokeswoman for the city of Fullerton, said.

Palmer said an employee at the warehouse “heard the thunk” and called paramedics, who took the two women to UCI Medical Center in Orange.

The passenger, Stephanie McEwan, 30, of Irvine, was reported in serious condition Friday with a broken pelvis. The pilot, Kim Wilks, 35, a part-time flight instructor from Anaheim, was listed in stable condition.

The cause of the crash is under investigation, Federal Aviation Administration officials said.

The plane crashed within a quarter-mile of the site where Bruce Wayne, 52, a popular radio traffic announcer, died when his Cessna Cardinal went down shortly after takeoff in June of 1986.

Five months later, a plane crashed near an elementary school on Fern Drive just 30 minutes after classes had ended.

These and other crashes have kindled controversy among airport neighbors. In 1986, Fullerton residents tried unsuccessfully to pass a referendum banning small jets from landing at the airport.

When confronted by residents’ complaints, city officials have replied by pointing out that the airport was built long before the area became a residential neighborhood and that those who moved there did so at their own risk.

Helen Reed, who lives on South Waldo Avenue near the airport, said she has

long opposed the airport.

But, she said, she has stopped fighting it because city officials have turned a deaf ear to hers and other residents’ complaints.

“Everybody has protested (the airport) at the meetings they have at City Hall,” she said, “and it doesn’t do any good.” Wilks, the pilot in Friday’s crash, rented the Cherokee 6 from the Aviation Clubs of Fullerton, where she is a flight instructor, according to Elle Adams, a friend who works at the club.

Adams said the two women were on their way to Long Beach Municipal Airport to pick up some more women going to a Northern California meeting of the 99’s, a female pilots’ club founded in 1929 by Amelia Earhart. Adams said McEwan, the passenger, was taking flying lessons and thinking of joining the 99’s.

“She was going up to see what it was like,” Adams said.

“They’re lucky, they’re real lucky it didn’t (burn), because they had full fuel,” Adams said. “They were going to travel a long way in that plane.”

Adams said that she spoke to Wilks in the hospital Friday morning but that the pilot was too dazed to give an account of how the plane crashed.

“She was real concerned about the airplane,” Adams said.

Last weekend, Adams recalled, she flew the same plane in which Wilks crashed to a resort area in Arizona. When Adams returned, she said, Wilks quizzed her about the plane’s performance.

“She kept asking me how the plane was working,” Adams said. “I said, ‘It’s great. Everything’s working fine.’ ”

Adams, who said she has often flown with Wilks, said the pilot had about three years’ experience, and had logged at least 25 hours in a Cherokee 6.

“I just feel real bad it happened,” Adams said. “I wish I understood what happened . . . but in a situation like that, it happens so fast.”

As police and safety investigators prowled the crash scene Friday morning, Joe Madas, an acquaintance of Wilks from the Fullerton aviation club, stood looking at the twisted wreckage.

“I came (to the club) this morning to take an airplane ride,” he explained, still staring at the ruined plane. “I was going to take a ride to the desert. But I noticed the FAA guys around, and they told me what happened. It puts a damper on taking a joy ride.”