Victims in Plane Crash Identified as Agoura Hills Family

An Agoura Hills couple and their 3-month-old daughter died in a single-engine plane crash in northern San Diego County that went undiscovered for four days, authorities said Thursday.

Richard Vander Heide, 40, his wife, Nancy, 38, and their daughter, Willow, died Oct. 28 after their Piper Colt crashed in a canyon about a mile north of Oceanside Airport, San Diego County Deputy Coroner George Dickason said.

According to a flight plan filed by Vander Heide, he planned to fly his two-seat plane from Oceanside Airport to Camarillo Airport in Ventura County, about an hour away. Federal Aviation Administration Inspector Larry Lehr said Vander Heide’s plane crashed and burst into flames shortly after taking off about 10:45 p.m. in heavy fog. Camarillo Airport has no control tower.

The crash is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.

There were no witnesses to the crash and the burned wreckage went undiscovered until a man hunting rattlesnakes in the canyon found it and told authorities.

Lehr said the family was not missed immediately because they had no close relatives in Southern California. The family was identified Wednesday.

Relatives said Richard Vander Heide was a used-textbook distributor who aspired to be a commercial pilot. His father, Ralph, said his son moved to California from Michigan about five years ago because he thought he could fly more and because he “loved the coast.”

The couple was married about eight years. Nancy Vander Heide was a homemaker, said Kathryn McDonald, Vander Heide’s sister. Willow was their only child.

The couple, badly burned in the accident, was identified by dental records and injuries sustained in another plane crash four years ago in Northern California. Lehr said the couple required surgery after their Cessna ran out of gas over Ukiah and crashed into a redwood tree in January, 1986.

San Diego County Deputy Coroner Max Murphy said there was no way to positively identify the baby through medical or dental records, but that investigators were certain the child was the couple’s.