DANA POINT : 2 Fliers Crash-Land off Beach

A small plane carrying two 19-year-old fliers lost power off Monarch Beach on Tuesday, landing just short of the sand after the two tried unsuccessfully to warn beach-goers to get out of the way.

Rajiv Mohil of India and Suhhel Yakub of Kenya walked away with minor injuries, and no one on shore was hurt.

The men said they frantically circled the beach for about 10 minutes trying to warn the 100 or so swimmers and sunbathers that the plane was having problems.

“There were so many people and no one would move,” Yakub said. “Most people were just pointing at us.”

The men said their Cessna 150 was traveling at 70 m.p.h. with Mohil at the controls when it struck the water and flipped onto its top. The plane, which the pair had rented from a Texas flight school on Sunday, had been experiencing engine trouble, but they said they thought they had the problem fixed.

The men were treated at South Coast Medical Center in South Laguna.

The plane was at about 1,500 feet when it began losing power and altitude. Mohil began circling the beach.

When the plane dropped to 200 feet, the engine quit and Mohil took the plane into the surf, where it flipped onto the sand. Mohil scrambled out, but Yakub needed help to get his door open.

“We had no choice but to crash,” Yakub said. “We were losing altitude. It was very scary, but we knew we had to do it.”

Lifeguard Dave Profant saw the crash and praised Mohil.

“He did a really nice job,” Profant said. He said it was obvious that Mohil was looking for an unpopulated stretch to land the plane.

“If he hadn’t done that, there could have been a lot of victims.”

Shelby Craven, 16, and Amanda Howard, 17, were part of a group of Dana Hills High School students and recent graduates playing volleyball and sunbathing about 100 feet from where the plane crashed. They said that people noticed the plane but that nobody thought it was going to crash until just before it did.

“The plane just kept circling around and it didn’t look or sound too good,” Craven said. “Then the propeller turned completely off.”

Howard added: “Everybody said, ‘It’s not going to hit us,’ so they just sat there.”

The pilots said they left San Diego’s Montgomery Field at 10:30 Tuesday morning en route to Fullerton Municipal Airport for a day at Disneyland. About 10 minutes after takeoff, problems began. Mohil contacted air traffic controllers at El Toro for emergency landing instructions.

“The pilot was told that he could land at El Toro (Marine Corps Air Station), but he advised the controllers that he would be unable to make it,” said Elly Brekke, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

The men then spotted the beach, and a Coast Guard rescue boat and a Marine Corps rescue helicopter were dispatched.

Both are students at Pegasus Flight Center in Ft. Worth, training to become commercial jetliner pilots in their native countries.

Yakub has his private license, while Mohil has his commercial license.

The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.