2 Killed When Biplane Crashes Near Simi Valley : Aviation: Two off-road bicyclists say the craft’s engine sputtered and stopped before the accident in the Santa Susana hills.

Two people were killed early Tuesday when the home-built biplane they were flying in crashed into a rocky hillside just east of Simi Valley.

The crash occurred at 8:45 a.m. in a remote area of the Santa Susana hills, about 1 1/2 miles north of the Simi Valley Freeway at Rocky Peak Road, according to authorities and witnesses.

The man and woman on board the plane were pronounced dead at the scene, said Officer Jayne Suits, a California Highway Patrol spokeswoman.

The man was identified as Sammy Roth, 37, of Van Nuys. The woman was identified as Julia Chandler, 33, of Tujunga, said Jim Wingate, Ventura County deputy coroner.

The two were licensed pilots and it was not known who was flying the plane at the time of the accident, authorities said.

The couple left Van Nuys Airport at 7:20 a.m. in their red-and-white “Starduster Too,” a small home-built stunt plane, said Elly Brekke, a spokeswoman with the Federal Aviation Administration.

Brekke said it was not known where the couple was headed. She said the cause of the crash is still under investigation.

Two off-road bicyclists who witnessed the accident said they heard the plane’s engine sputtering and then stop before the plane crashed.

“We just heard it, then suddenly it came out of the fog--nose first,” said Mats Insulander, 25. “It wasn’t like the movies. It didn’t explode. It just went down.”

“They were about 200 feet off the ground when they broke through the cloud cover,” said Louis Ibarra, 35. “The plane was sputtering all the way down, like it lost control. . . . I was horrified.”

The two men said the plane crashed about a quarter of a mile from where they had been riding. They went to the crash site, only to find that the two passengers were dead.

“The plane was broken up bad,” Ibarra said. “At first we thought the man was alive, but I was told later by paramedics that they both died on impact.”

Fuel from the plane covered the ground and the two feared that it might still explode, he said.

Ibarra said the men rode back to the freeway, where they flagged down a CHP officer. A Ventura County sheriff’s helicopter and paramedic were then dispatched to the scene.

Insulander, of Sweden, said he has been visiting with Ibarra’s family in Simi Valley for the past week. He said he had just gotten over the shock of Sunday’s earthquake when he witnessed the plane crash.