2 Badly Burned in Plane Crash : Aircraft Slams Into Field, Erupts in Flames Just After Takeoff

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.

Hartley, who later Sunday was transferred to the burn unit at UCI Medical Center in Orange, 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.

But a Long Beach Fire Department official who was at the scene said their investigators believe Calderone’s single-engine plane, a Piper Tomahawk, was hit by a strong gust of wind just after he took off from Runway 25L.

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 apparently lost control of the plane and, at 1:27 p.m. Sunday, it slammed nose first into a field near the runway.

Immediately after the crash, flames shot out of the engine compartment, raced into the cockpit and burned onto the right wing, Caldon said.

Twenty-five firefighters responded from a station one-eighth of a mile from the airport. They sprayed foam on the flames, “popping the door” on Calderone’s side and dragging him out of the plane, Caldon said. But Hartley was trapped inside as the plane continued to burn.

Finally, using a Jaws of Life hydraulic prying device, firefighters were able to cut Hartley out of airplane, Caldon said.

Calderone was taken by Lifeflight helicopter to Memorial, where he was admitted to the intensive-care unit. Hartley was transported by ambulance to Memorial, then transferred to UCI Medical Center.

“She’ll get better care there,” Memorial spokesman Ron Yukelson said. “We don’t have a burn-specific unit.”

Caldon said controllers in the Long Beach airport’s observation tower watched the plane crash Sunday.

Both he and an FAA spokesman said they did not know where the small plane was going or how much experience Calderone has as a pilot.

Neither Calderone nor Hartley was able to explain what led to the crash, but on the way to the hospital, Caldon said, Hartley talked a little, mentioning to paramedics that “she heard the (stall) buzzer sounding just before the accident.”