Pilot Killed in Crash of Homemade Aircraft
The pilot of a homemade airplane was killed Sunday morning when his experimental craft went into a nose-dive and crashed a minute after takeoff at Brackett Field in La Verne. No one else was aboard the RV4 aircraft and no other property damage was reported, a Federal Aviation Administration official said.
“He just took off, went up about 300 feet, radioed he had problems and came straight down,” the FAA spokeswoman said. The pilot’s identity was being withheld pending notification of his family and a coroner’s report, she said. The accident’s cause is under investigation.
The 9:02 a.m. crash caused a fire and “spewed wreckage everywhere” on the side of the runway, said Lt. Jim Strona of the La Verne police.
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