Fish-Spotting Plane Crashes Off Coast; Pilot Missing

A light plane whose pilot was spotting swordfish for a commercial fishing boat crashed into the ocean Sunday morning about 10 miles southwest of Dana Point.

Coast Guard and Navy rescuers searched late into the night but failed to find any sign of the pilot. A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said that because the water could be as deep as 2,400 feet, recovery of the Cessna 172 is unlikely.

The pilot, identified as Joseph A. Shirley, 42, of Del Mar, was working with the crew aboard the Horizon, a fishing boat based in San Diego but operating Sunday from Dana Point Harbor.

Scott Caldwell of San Clemente saw the plane go down from aboard his own boat, the Leslie Anne. “One minute I saw him circling around, and the next, his plane was on its back heading fast for the water, nose first,” Caldwell said Sunday afternoon.

Caldwell said the plane seemed to be flying at a normal altitude for a swordfish-spotting plane. Coast Guard officials later said several witnesses indicated there was no fire or smoke coming from the plane and that the crash occurred just seconds after the plane began to spiral.

Two marlin fishermen also close to the crash scene said they heard the initial radio call from the Horizon to another fishing boat.

“The guy from the Horizon was really upset,” said Ken Snyder of Laguna Beach. “He yelled that the plane had gone down too fast for them to get there before it sank.”

Search authorities said they recovered a flight plan with no entries, a tennis shoe, an aerosol can and some flotsam in the water near the crash. Authorities also reported finding a gasoline slick at the site.

The weather conditions were clear and the sea was calm with little wind, according to fishermen in the area.

Two Coast Guard cutters, two Coast Guard helicopters and a Navy vessel searched the area for the pilot and the plane. But a Coast Guard spokeswoman, Petty Officer Elizabeth Neely, said the deep waters made the search extremely difficult.

Neely said the pilot apparently had flown out of Gillespie Field in El Cajon in San Diego County. But Coast Guard officials late Sunday were unable to confirm the pilot’s identity from information given them by the Horizon crew.

The three-member crew of the Horizon was unavailable for comment, but other fisherman who heard their radio reports said they were all stunned because there had been no indication that the plane was in trouble.

Sunday, at Dana Point’s commercial fishing dock, many fishermen who had heard of the crash were in disbelief.

“It was a freak thing,” said Caldwell. “We never have any problems with spotters.”

The pilot who spots for Caldwell, who identified himself only as “Rod,” said swordfish spotting is one of the safest areas of employment for commercial pilots.

“We tend to stay in a pattern and we watch out for one another,” he said. “We’re in constant contact with the fishing boats and with each other. This is really unbelievable.”

Swordfish feed at night in lower depths and come to the surface during the daytime, several Dana Point fishermen explained. They can be more easily spotted by an airplane pilot, who then usually drops some type of dye into the water to locate the fish for the crew on the boat. Other fish, such as marlin, also stay near the top, but they cannot be sold commercially.

Several said swordfish fishermen can get between $5 and $6.75 per pound for fish that usually weigh in at more than 200 pounds.

The spotter planes usually fly at altitudes of 1,000 feet or more and travel at speeds up to 90 m.p.h., Caldwell’s pilot explained.

But other fishermen at the Harbor said some of the pilots fly as low as 500 feet and at speeds much slower than 90 m.p.h. to more easily spot the fish.

Hand-Thrown Harpoons

When a swordfish is spotted, a fisherman standing on a long plank at the bow of the boat hand-throws a harpoon at the fish. A wire attached to the harpoon carries flotation devices that help the fishermen track the fast-swimming swordfish.

“The swordfish swims away until he finally wears out, then the boat just drives over and picks him up,” one fisherman explained.

Caldwell, who caught a swordfish Sunday, said the season has been slow.

“This isn’t easy to talk about,” he said. “We just don’t see something like this in our line of work. I’m really sick about it.”

But Caldwell said commercial fishermen in the area were greatly impressed with the speed with which the Coast Guard reached the crash site.

“We can’t say enough about them,” Caldwell said.

Staff writers Thomas Becher and Igor Greenwald contributed to this story.