Catalina Air Crash Victim Identified as Laguna Man : Accident: Pilot of single-engine plane had radioed that he was in trouble and was trying to reach the island’s airport when he crashed in a rugged canyon.

A Laguna Beach man killed when his single-engine plane crashed in a remote area of Santa Catalina Island has been identified as Jeffrey Noel Matson, authorities said Thursday.

Matson, 33, who received his private pilot’s license less than nine months ago, transmitted a distress signal to air traffic control in El Toro just minutes before crashing at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday, according to Jim Miller, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. Matson told the tower he had engine trouble and planned to land at Catalina Airport, Miller said.

But before air control could locate Matson on radar to provide him with assistance, the aircraft lost radio contact and crashed into a dry creek bed in a canyon near Big Springs, six miles from the airport.

Matson had rented the single-engine Cessna 152 from Orange County Flight Center at John Wayne Airport at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

He left on what was to be a two-hour solo trip, said the company’s owner, Gary Sequeira.

Matson did not leave an itinerary, Sequeira said. Matson was a frequent customer who had been renting planes since last September, he said.

FAA spokesman Fred O’Donnell in Los Angeles said it would take several months for investigators to determine the cause of the crash. Wreckage from the scene as well as other clues will be analyzed in Los Angeles and Washington, O’Donnell said.

People who were camping on the western end of Catalina said they saw the airplane sputtering and circling above the island before it disappeared behind a ridge, said Capt. Larry Hambleton of the Los Angeles County Fire Department on Catalina.

“Then they saw smoke. It looks like the pilot tried to make a forced landing. It was in extremely rugged terrain,” Hambleton said.

Several island residents saw thick smoke rising from the canyon where the plane crashed, and called the Fire Department.

When rescuers arrived, they encountered a two-acre blaze at the bottom of an 800-foot-deep canyon that is inaccessible by car.

After wading through waist-high cacti and thick brush down the steep terrain, sheriff’s deputies and firemen found the plane’s burning fuselage. Matson’s body was discovered 40 feet away, having apparently been thrown from the plane on impact, Hambleton said.

Russ Butler, Matson’s former next-door neighbor in Laguna Beach, said Matson was a “warm, considerate person with a good sense of humor.” Butler said Matson was single and had no immediate family in the area.

He said Matson was in the real estate business.

“I’m very sad and I feel just awful about his death. He was a great person,” Butler said.