Pilot May Have Picked a Canyon Too Tight

Rescue experts speculated Sunday that a Marine reconnaissance aircraft found wrecked on a rugged slope near San Gorgonio Mountain may have flown into a treacherous canyon that was too narrow for the plane.

Military investigators Sunday combed through the wreckage of the olive-colored OV-10A Bronco to determine the cause of the Aug. 24 crash near the highest peak in the San Bernardino Mountains, about 25 miles east of San Bernardino. Rescue workers late Sunday were trying to retrieve the bodies of the two crewmen killed.

The wreckage was discovered Saturday. The plane had been missing 16 days since failing to return from a flight from Camp Pendleton in northern San Diego County. About 150 military and civilian aircraft spent days scouring 324,000 square miles of Southern California desert and mountains between the Mexican border and Nevada before giving up the search 10 days ago.

Those who first spotted the crash site said the crew of the twin-engine plane may have tried to turn the craft around quickly when they realized that the plane was heading toward a wall in Whitewater Canyon, but did not have enough room to maneuver.

‘Trapped Like a Fly in a Web’

“They were trapped like a fly in a web,” said Air Force Auxiliary Lt. Col. Keith Kelley of the Civil Air Patrol, who first spotted what appeared to be the wreckage and later notified a San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department helicopter crew of its location.

The victims were pilot Sergio R. Vivaldi, 29, of Port Chester, N.Y., and observer 1st Lt. Joel H. Piehl, 31, of Bismarck, N.D. They left Camp Pendleton on Aug. 24 for a three-hour training flight, said 1st Lt. Gene C. Browne, a spokesman for El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

Piehl’s father, Howard Piehl, said he was somewhat relieved when Marine officials called to tell him that the plane had been found.

“It’s a piece of mind we’ve been waiting for,” Piehl said Sunday from Bismarck. “It was a long time to wait.”

Coincidentally, the wreckage was identified by a helicopter crew that was ferrying the body of Banning City Manager Thomas Huebner, who died of an apparent heart attack while hiking Friday in San Bernardino National Forest just two miles from the crash site.

Huebner, credited with restoring confidence to his city’s troubled Police Department, suffered the attack on the Vivian Creek Trail near Forest Falls, authorities said. He was 53.

Trying to Figure It Out

A helicopter was sent to retrieve the body Saturday morning, San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Jim Singley said.

Forty-five minutes later, the crew came across the plane wreckage.

Kelley of the Civil Air Patrol said that although the Marines had suspended the search for the plane, the CAP continued to fly over the area daily.

“I must have spent 20 hours in air and another 20 on the phone to figure this thing out,” said Kelley, 70, a Van Nuys resident who who started mountain search rescues in 1943. “After a while, you begin to piece together what had happened.”

Because the plane’s route was not known, and radar was unable to track it, Marine officials relied upon civilian reports in the search.

Kelley was tipped off by a report of a boom and smoke in the area about 12:10 p.m. on Aug. 24.

Blue-gray smoke was spotted at about 8,000 feet by forestry workers on San Gorgonio Mountain. They immediately dispatched a helicopter to the area because of the threat of fire, said Lt. Col Frank Burnham, a Civil Air Patrol intelligence officer.

But when the helicopter got to the area, there was no smoke or fire, and the wreckage was never seen, because the plane actually crashed at 6,100 feet in “the most vicious aircraft trap,” Kelley said.

High winds, steep terrain and poor visibility make flying in the area a hazard, he said.

Kelley, a retired Air Force search-and-rescue squadron commander, spotted what he thought was the wreckage Friday while making a pass in a fixed-wing aircraft in a quarter-mile-wide gorge about two miles southeast of the mountain.

He alerted Singley and Sheriff’s Deputy Rich Miller, who were in their helicopter returning Huebner’s body to their station. They hovered 50 feet above the spot and saw the wreckage wedged into a crevice.

The Marine craft, the same color as surrounding vegetation, was not easy to spot, Singley said, but then he saw the crew’s colorful parachutes.

“I saw what looked like an orange sleeping bag laying on the side of a very steep ravine,” he said. “As we got closer, I noticed it was a parachute that was also white and green. Then I said, ‘Hey, there’s the wreckage.’ ”

The plane was found 50 feet below the parachute, he said.

One Piece the Size of a Desk

“It was an extensive wreckage,” Singley said. “The biggest piece was the size of a desk.”

It was not immediately clear how the Marines were killed, but judging from scattered wreckage and steep terrain, Singley said, they were probably killed on impact. The bodies were found 10 hours after the wreckage was first spotted.

The crew belonged to Marine Observation Squadron 2, Marine Aircraft Group 39, at Camp Pendleton. The group is part of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, with headquarters at El Toro.