Crash Inquiry Targets Flight Path : Santa Paula: Pilot killed in Thursday collision may have been on the wrong approach and using an outdated radio frequency.

A federal aviation investigator said Friday that a Kern County pilot may have been flying on the wrong flight path and radio frequency when another plane’s propeller shredded his aircraft’s tail Thursday and sent him to his death in a fiery crash near Santa Paula Airport.

National Transportation Safety Board investigator George Petterson said other pilots told him that William Lewis Clark was not heard on a common radio channel just before his Cessna 182 crashed into two homes east of the runway and set them ablaze.

Clark’s plane also appeared to be flying outside the required landing pattern when it collided with the other plane, which was following the pattern correctly, Petterson said.

Clark, 49, of Buttonwillow, was killed in the crash.

A family miraculously escaped from their home just before the weight of Clark’s flaming plane collapsed their roof and sent the plane plunging through the wall and into a neighboring house. Daniel Garcia, 48, was hospitalized for smoke inhalation, but no one else was seriously injured.

The other plane, a Cessna 150 trainer, landed safely after Santa Paula flight instructor Andrew Sinclair probably took over the controls from a trainee who was flying it before the crash, Petterson said.

Neither Sinclair nor the trainee, Betty Polak of Camarillo, could be reached Friday for comment.

The NTSB requested Clark’s and Sinclair’s pilot safety records from the Federal Aviation Administration headquarters in Oklahoma City, said Jeff Rich, aviation supervisor for NTSB western regional headquarters in Los Angeles.

“At this stage of the investigation it’s not something that’s a priority,” Rich said. “That’s several days off.”

Petterson said Clark may not have known that the 10-year-old radio frequency that all pilots must use to broadcast their intention to use the Santa Paula runway was changed three weeks ago.

FAA officials said all pilots are required to check an airport’s universal radio frequency before taking off.

The frequency change from 122.7 to 122.9 was entered in the agency’s computer the day it was changed, and appeared in the FAA Airport Facilities Directory published Aug. 20, said FAA spokesman Fred O’Donnell.

“The bottom line is that it’s the pilot’s responsibility to ascertain the frequency,” O’Donnell said. “The smart thing for me to do if I’m going to Santa Paula is call Santa Barbara flight service and ask what’s (the frequency) for Santa Paula.”

On Friday afternoon Petterson, Cessna inspectors and insurance adjusters looked over all that was left of Clark’s Cessna 182--a small black tangle of burned aluminum and the charred flat-six engine, which had to be winched out of the burned homes.

They then looked at the Cessna 150 training plane, owned by Santa Paula Flight Center, which survived with smudges of paint on its cowling, a scratched propeller and a diagonal gouge under its right wing from Clark’s plane.

After interviewing witnesses and examining a few unburned shreds of Clark’s plane’s tail section that fell a short distance away from the plane itself, Petterson concluded this is probably what happened:

With Sinclair supervising, Polak was flying on the prescribed landing pattern.

The pattern requires all planes to fly eastward while parallel to the runway and a few hundred yards to its south, then to turn north, then west to land on a westward path down the runway.

As the Cessna 150 trainer was on the final westward approach at about 60 to 70 m.p.h., Clark’s Cessna 182 entered the same approach without taking the eastward leg.

Clark’s plane entered the final approach either straight on--westbound--or at an angle, southwest-bound, 10 to 20 m.p.h. faster than the trainer, Petterson said.

The 182 was flying with full flaps, meaning that its ailerons were fully extended to slow it down, he said.

“The propeller chopped through the left horizontal stabilizer on the 182,” Petterson said. “With the loss of the elevator and full flaps, the plane would tend to pitch over. It landed upside-down.”

Petterson said the pilots should have been able to see each other, but he declined to speculate on who was at fault because the investigation is far from finished.

The FAA directory says of Santa Paula, as it does for most other airports in the country, “Straight-on approach is not authorized,” according to O’Donnell.

“That means that airport management doesn’t want to see any straight-in approaches at all,” he said. “They’re telling the pilot to enter the designated traffic pattern.”

Petterson said that seven of the 28 accidents at Santa Paula Airport since 1983 have been fatal, claiming the lives of 10 fliers. Three of those--including Thursday’s crash--were midair collisions, he said.

The tiny privately owned airport operates without a control tower because it has no commercial traffic which would require such a tower, he said.

Fliers at the airfield Friday said there is no need for a tower when pilots follow the prescribed flight pattern and keep track of each other’s movements on the universal radio channel.

They said the radio frequency provides all the safety pilots need, so long as they follow the laws requiring them to tune in.

“It’s like a great big party line,” said Bob Phelps, a veteran pilot who retired from work as an FAA investigator last September. “People use it and they don’t step on each other.”

The American Red Cross has set up a fund for the two families whose homes and possessions were burned in the crash. Donations may be made to the Red Cross at 868 E. Santa Clara St., Ventura, 93001.

Times staff writer Daryl Kelley contributed to this story.