Santa Clarita Plane Crash Kills 3, Badly Hurts Girl, 13 : Witnesses Report Single-Engine Craft Hit Power Line While Apparently Trying to Land on Sierra Highway

A single-engine plane lost power and crashed Thursday in Santa Clarita, instantly killing the pilot and two passengers and critically injuring a 13-year-old girl on board.

The girl was taken by helicopter to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia, where she was unconscious and breathing with the help of a respirator late Thursday afternoon, hospital spokeswoman Jane McCue said. The girl’s name and the identities of the other victims, a man and two women, were withheld until relatives could be notified.

Left Sacramento

The plane, a Trinidad TB-21 four-seater heading from Sacramento to Van Nuys Airport, crashed about 2:10 p.m. in rugged terrain just west of Sierra Highway and south of Placerita Canyon Road, said Elly Brekke, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman.

Witnesses said the plane’s pilot apparently was trying to land on Sierra Highway when the plane hit a high-voltage power line and plummeted to the ground.

Four minutes before the crash, the pilot radioed the Van Nuys Airport control tower to report engine problems and ask for directions to the nearest airport, said Bob Hayes, airport spokesman. The plane crashed moments after an air traffic controller gave directions and told the pilot to switch to a Mayday frequency, Hayes said.

The pilot was operating under visual flight rules and was not being guided by ground controllers, Brekke said.

John Stephens, who was taking pictures at a nearby auto accident, went to check on the victims after seeing the plane crash. Stephens said the plane’s pilot, a man, appeared to be in his 60s. The two female passengers who died in the crash also appeared to be older, he said.

The injured girl was lying on her back in the brush after she apparently had been thrown several feet from the red plane, Stephens and other witnesses said.

“There was no engine noise at all,” said Jason Moore, 22, who saw the crash while working at a nearby construction site with six other men. “It was just gliding. It made a hard right turn. It looked like it was trying to land on Sierra Highway, and then it clipped a wire, and we heard it crash.”

“It looked like it didn’t have any power,” said Scott Fiscus, 26, another construction worker. “The pilot was coasting and trying to get his nose up. We saw it clip the wire and part of the plane flew off.”

Nearby Car Fire

Firefighters had just put out a car fire on the Antelope Valley Freeway only yards from the crash site and were treating the injured driver when the plane approached the freeway from the south and made a sharp turn to the west before crashing, authorities said.

After hearing the crash, firefighters and several paramedics headed the wrong way down a freeway on-ramp and rushed to the crash scene, witnesses said. A Los Angeles County Fire Department helicopter arrived moments later and flew the injured girl to the hospital.

Investigators from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board, who arrived at the scene late Thursday afternoon, were trying to determine the cause of the accident, authorities said.

Times Staff Writer Hector Tobar contributed to this story.