Plane Crashes at Magic Mountain Parking Lot; 2 on Board Injured

Two people were injured Wednesday when a home-built airplane crashed in the Six Flags Magic Mountain parking lot after it clipped a power line during an emergency landing, flipped over and skidded upside down across the pavement, authorities said.

Passenger Jeanette Aelony, 49, of the Palos Verdes Peninsula was trapped in the wreckage of the Glasair experimental plane for 90 minutes before rescue workers could free her. She was in serious condition at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital with several broken bones and a head injury.

Pilot Hal Ballentine, 63, was in fair condition at the same hospital with cuts and bruises. No one on the ground was injured in the 11:30 a.m. crash. The cause was under investigation.

“I suspect they had some type of malfunction, but at this point we have no idea what it was,” said Jerry Parrott, a Federal Aviation Administration inspector. “There was fuel on the pavement so that leads us to believe they did not run out of fuel.”

The Valencia amusement park was open when the single-engine plane, which had taken off from the Torrance Airport, crashed in an empty parking lot at the northern end of the park.