Crash of Private Plane North of Castaic Kills 1

A private plane crashed into a steep mountainside about 6 miles north of Castaic on Tuesday, killing a passenger and critically injuring the 22-year-old pilot, authorities said.

The plane, a two-seat Cessna that had been missing since 9 a.m., was owned by Southland Aviation, based at Whiteman Airport in Pacoima, said Los Angeles County Fire Department Inspector Joe Silva. The victims were a student pilot and an instructor, he said.

The name of the dead instructor was not released until relatives could be notified.

The pilot, Andrew Conejo of Los Angeles, suffered head injuries, facial cuts and a broken left arm, said Rose Morelli, nursing supervisor at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia.

Conejo was later transferred to Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, where he was in stable condition and able to speak, said Holly Lyons, a hospital nursing supervisor.

The cause of the crash was not known. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board briefly surveyed the crash site from a helicopter Tuesday and were scheduled to return for further inspection this morning, officials said.

The plane crashed in rugged territory just north of Templin Highway, about four miles east of the Golden State Freeway in the Angeles National Forest. Firefighters had to be flown in by helicopter and cut through 10-foot-high brush to reach the plane, said Bob Dunbar, who piloted the helicopter for the Fire Department.

The exact time of the crash was not known, officials said.

Tom Axelrod, an electrical power plant engineer at a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power pumping storage facility just east of the crash site, said another plant employee noticed the downed plane as the men were riding home in a company van at about 3:45 p.m.

“He looked at the hills, saw a plane sitting there and said, ‘That wasn’t there yesterday,’ ” Axelrod said. The man called authorities.

The plane appeared to have crashed into the mountainside from the east, Dunbar said.