Investigator Says Pilot Killed in Crash Flew Into Clouds Without OK

A pilot killed when his rented plane crashed into a mountainside above Sylmar last week flew into a cloud bank without permission from the Van Nuys Airport tower, an air safety investigator said Monday.

If he had radioed the tower for permission to switch from visual to instrument flying to enter it, he would likely have been warned that he was already too close to a mountain hidden in the cloud cover, the investigator said.

The 22-year-old pilot crashed Friday afternoon only 15 minutes after leaving Van Nuys Airport in the single-engine Cessna. The victim’s body was burned beyond recognition in the crash and his name was not released because investigators have not formally verified his identity.

National Transportation Safety Board investigator Wayne Pollock said the pilot had moved to the Los Angeles area from Greece several months ago, had been taking flight instructions at Van Nuys Airport and was familiar with flying in the San Fernando Valley.

He had received both a pilot’s license and an instrument-rated certificate, meaning that he was authorized to fly by instruments in cloud cover, under tower permission.

After taking off in the same Cessna that he had rented and flown earlier in the week, the pilot flew below cloud cover into the northeast Valley, where a witness on the ground reported seeing the plane do a variety of turns in the Sylmar area.

Pollock said that 11 minutes after takeoff, the pilot radioed the tower and said he was north of the airport and was returning. He was cleared for a routine landing.

“The pilot did not indicate he had any problem, nor did he request any assistance,” Pollock said.

About two minutes later, the plane turned north, ascended into a cloud bank and almost immediately struck the face of a mountain at about 2,500 feet, Pollock said.

Although the pilot was instrument-rated, he was still required to ask the tower for permission to begin flying by instruments in cloud cover, Pollock said.

“He would have had to have air traffic clearance to do that,” Pollock said. And if he had sought clearance, air traffic controllers “would have attempted to identify him on radar and determined he was in close proximity to mountains. At his position, he was too low and too close to the mountains to be issued clearance.”

Pollock said the investigation is continuing and it is unknown why the pilot flew north after radioing that he planned to land at Van Nuys Airport to the southwest.