2 Critically Hurt as Plane Crashes in Long Beach

Two Orange County residents were critically burned Sunday when their small plane crashed just after takeoff from Long Beach Municipal Airport and was engulfed by flames.

Pilot Angelo Calderone, 65, of Los Alamitos and his passenger, Delores Hartley, 44, of Costa Mesa were taken to Memorial Hospital of Long Beach in “extremely critical condition” with second- and third-degree burns over most of their bodies, hospital officials said.

Calderone suffered burns over 60% of his body and Hartley suffered burns over 90% of her body.

Investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration were looking into the cause of the crash Sunday and officials from the National Transportation Safety Board were expected to join the inquiry today.

A Long Beach Fire Department official who was at the scene said fire investigators believe that Calderone’s single-engine plane, a Piper Tomahawk, was hit by a gust of wind just after he took off.

As the plane’s stall buzzer sounded, Calderone reacted properly, bringing the nose of the airplane down, Fire Department spokesman Bob Caldon said. But then Calderone lost control of the plane and at 1:27 p.m. it slammed nose-first into a field near the runway and caught on fire.

Twenty-five firefighters from a nearby station sprayed foam on the flames and pulled Calderone out of the plane, Caldon said. But Hartley remained trapped inside until firefighters could cut her out, using a hydraulic “jaws-of-life” device.

Calderone was taken by helicopter to Memorial Hospital, where he was admitted to the intensive care unit. Hartley was taken by ambulance to the hospital, then transferred to the burn unit of UCI Medical Center in Orange.