2 Unhurt When Plane Crashes in Flood Basin

A flight instructor and his student escaped serious injury Saturday when their single-engine plane lost power and crashed into a Sun Valley flood control basin just minutes after takeoff from Pacoima’s Whiteman Airport, authorities said.

The instructor, Dar Kindred, and the student, Keith Suhl, suffered only minor cuts when the Cessna 182 crash-landed and flipped over in shallow water behind an industrial yard, officials said.

Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration were investigating the crash to determine the cause of the power failure.

“It could have been a lot worse than it was,” Kindred said. “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before and I hope it never happens again.”

Kindred said he and Suhl were on a practice instrument test flight to Fox Field in Palmdale. The pair took off about 11:40 a.m., with Suhl, a licensed pilot, at the controls. When they were about 200 feet off the ground, the engine quit.

“It just got quiet, and we both looked at each other,” he said. “We knew what had happened.”

Taking the controls, Kindred tried to maneuver the plane toward a golf course less than half a mile away, but realized it did not have enough power to glide the distance. Instead, he guided the plane into the basin.

“I know we were very, very lucky,” Kindred said. “Lucky to put it in the water. And lucky that this did not end in a worse way.”