5 Die in Fiery O.C. Jet Crash : Disaster: The private craft slams into a field in Santa Ana Auto Mall. All aboard perish but no one on the ground is hurt.

By MARK PLATTE

Dec. 16, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SANTA ANA —

A corporate jet with five people aboard plunged from the sky during rush hour Wednesday evening, slamming nose first into a field next to a jammed auto mall and bursting into flames. There were no survivors.

“The plane was just coming in, headed for the ground,” said Drew Davis, a 46-year-old Huntington Beach resident who watched the crash. “It sounded like a missile, just like a rocket. The ground just started shaking. (The pilot) really just nailed it face first into the ground to save as many people as he could.”

The pilot of the twin-engine Westwind 1124A made contact with the control tower at John Wayne Airport and was cleared for landing minutes before the crash. Air traffic controllers received no word that the aircraft was in trouble.

“Everything was absolutely routine at the point of the last communication with the aircraft,” said Fred O’Donnell, a spokesman from the Federal Aviation Administration. “There was no indication by the pilot of any problem.”

Witnesses reported seeing the plane, its engines eerily silent, glide above the string of auto dealerships that make up the Santa Ana Auto Mall shortly after 5:30 p.m. With a whoosh, the plane spiraled straight down and exploded on impact. Large sections of the aircraft and the remains of the passengers were scattered 30 yards away.

The captain of the aircraft was identified as John O. McDaniel, 49, of Long Beach, a pilot for Martin Aviation at John Wayne Airport, company officials said. A native of Australia, McDaniel is survived by one son, John, 22, and one daughter, Timory, 20. Colleagues called McDaniel an accomplished pilot who has flown a variety of aircraft.

No other passengers were identified.

KCAL television reported that Rich Snyder, 41, of Newport Beach, president of the In-N-Out Burger chain, had chartered the plane, but it was not known whether he was on board.

Company officials were meeting at company headquarters in Baldwin Park late Wednesday night but had no comment.

Family members of the crash victims, escorted by police, were ushered to a Santa Ana Fire Department hazardous materials truck, parked behind police lines about 200 yards from the crash site. The eight people were hugging and crying as they entered the vehicle. Some appeared to be in shock. They remained inside the truck for nearly an hour, before emerging, some holding hands. All declined to comment.

According to Donald Llorente, National Transportation Safety Board supervising agent, the plane hit nose-down at 45 degree angle, after doing a 360-degree roll, indicating a complete loss of control.

Before impact, Llorente said, there was no indication of explosion or fire on board.

When it crashed the plane carried a crew of two, and three passengers, Llorente said. The bodies of the pilot and co-pilot were still in the wreckage, he said. Those, along with the remains of the passengers, were to be moved this morning to a hangar at John Wayne Airport.

Llorene said the plane, which can accommodate 10 passengers, started out the day at Long Beach Airport, where it is based, with only the crew aboard. It picked up passengers in Orange County and La Verne, then flew to Fresno, Bakersfield and back to La Verne.

The FAA said weather conditions were good for flying, with visibility of 15 miles and calm winds.

Jim Hogan, sales manager of the auto mall’s Crevier BMW dealership, was about 150 feet from where the aircraft slammed into the ground.

“The plane was spiraling down, out of control and, boom, it hit nose first,” he said. “It hit nose first. It was just a mess. You could feel the heat of the explosion right through the windows of our dealership.”

Steve Webb, a California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer, was riding north on the Costa Mesa Freeway just south of Edinger Avenue when he caught a glimpse of the falling plane. The aircraft’s lights were on, he said, but there was no sound.

“It was like you threw something up and it came straight down,” said Webb. “I thought it had hit another plane because of the incline.”

The plane is registered to Management Activities Inc. of Long Beach and the registered agent is Dr. Robert Gumbiner, founder and chairman of FHP International Corp. of Fountain Valley, one of the country’s largest health maintenance organizations. A woman at Gumbiner’s home, who would not identify herself, said he was not on the plane, adding that he frequently leases it to others.

Just before the crash, the plane had taken off from Brackett Field in La Verne for a flight of about 20 miles to John Wayne Airport. An airport service worker at Brackett said the plane stopped there briefly, just after 5 p.m.

“It came through here,” said the man, who declined to give his name. “He landed, left off passengers and took off. . . . I don’t have a clue how many people got off. He taxied up and left. . . . They were on the taxiway before we could say hi or bye.”

National Transportation Safety Board officials were at the scene Wednesday night but had no immediate comment.

Some witnesses said the plane appeared to run out of fuel and speculated that the pilot was looking for a remote area to land the plane.

Firefighters initially worried about the presence of fuel and live shotgun shells that apparently had been inside the plane and exploded among the fiery wreckage.

Eyewitnesses were struck by the force of the crash.

Drew Davis was standing at the door of Commonwealth Volkswagen/Audi when the plane slammed down about 100 yards away.

Davis, a service adviser for the dealership, said it was “just a massive fireball. Just intense. There were some trees around and then an explosion. There was a series of small explosions and a real small smell of gunpowder.”

Davis said the crash occurred as most of the service departments at the auto mall were closing, creating a lot of traffic. “That’s our busiest time.”

Davis said about 15 people started running toward the plane to see if there were any survivors.

“You could see the tail section of the plane sticking up from the ground,” he said. “You could see personal belongings--briefcases, cellular phones and a headset--lying in the middle of the street.”

“I was in Vietnam, so I’ve seen some bad things. But this has to be the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

Coast Terminal Radar Control in El Toro had monitored the flight and “handed off” the plane to John Wayne Airport’s air-traffic controllers when the aircraft was six miles from landing. The transition to John Wayne was made smoothly and then the crash occurred, FAA officials said.

The aircraft had descended to about 3,000 feet when it made contact with the John Wayne Airport control tower. The most dramatic images of the crash’s aftermath came from videotape shot by Steve Guilford, a 45-year-old electronics designer and pilot from Corona, who was at a nearby restaurant when the plane went down.

Guilford, a pilot for 23 years, said he had his video camera with him because he was bringing a tape to show a friend. He said when he heard the crash, he grabbed the camera, ran to the scene and shot a five-minute tape, starting at 5:37 p.m.

“I wanted to have some kind of a factual record, to see if I could be of help, “ Guilford said. “I’d rather it didn’t happen (but) I just thought it would be good to record.”

Guilford said his brother was killed in an air crash in Perris in Riverside County last year.

The scene Wednesday night was horrific, he said. “The whole street was lit up for several hundred yards,” he said. “To me it was obvious there were no survivors.”

Guilford said he had worked at airports and seen other crashes. He said that because the debris was not scattered over a large area, the plane “had to have hit at a very straight angle. The aircraft was torn apart on initial impact.”

Police quickly cordoned off the area and told workers at the auto mall to leave the area. But many gathered in small groups to talk about what they ahad witnessed.

Times staff writers David Reyes, Fernando Romero, Tammerlin Drummond, Mary Lou Pickel, Dave Lesher, Mark I. Pinsky, Greg Hernandez and Rene Lynch and correspondents Willson Cummer and Frank Messina contributed to this report.

Deadly Crash

A corporate jet crashed in a field at the Santa Ana Auto Mall, killing five. The explosion ignited trees and strewed wreckage for 150 yards.

Westwind 1124A

Manufacturer: Israel Aircraft Industries

Power: Two turbofan jets

Weight empty: 12,300 pounds

Fuel capacity: 1,300 gallons

Maximum seating: 10 passengers; two crew

Maximum range: 3,300 miles

Santa Ana Auto Mall

Volkswagen

Chrysler/Plymouth/Isuzu