3 Die in Fogged-In Plane Crash

After three failed attempts to land at Camarillo Airport, three Ventura County residents died when their plane crashed into a fog-shrouded hillside near the Conejo Grade, authorities said Wednesday.

Pilot Hollis C. White, 58, of Camarillo, and passengers Don Dicus, 51, of Camarillo, and Kenneth D. McMillan, 37, of Thousand Oaks, were returning home from a business and golf trip in Riverside County when the crash occurred shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday five miles east of Camarillo Airport.

All three men in the six-seat single-engine Piper Saratoga died on impact, investigators said.

White was the sales and marketing director of Oxnard Building Materials, Dicus a salesman at the same firm, and McMillan was president of Wall Systems Inc. a construction subcontractor in Moorpark. They were returning from Chino in Riverside County after a one-day trip to Temecula, family members said.

Fog and haze had limited visibility to four to six miles when the plane crashed at an elevation of about 1,000 feet, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Hank Verbais said.

Times correspondent Patrick McCartney contributed to this story.