Pilot Sought Commercial License : Crash: Northridge resident had hoped to fly as a spotter for forestry agency. He died in Santa Monica accident.

Patrick Dean Brinnon was trying to accumulate flight hours needed for a pilot’s job in Eureka when his single-engine plane crashed Wednesday in a Westside residential neighborhood, according to his mother.

But flying was more than a career goal for the cable television director and editor, said Dolores Brinnon, speaking from her Northridge home.

“He had flying in his blood,” she said. “He always said if he went down in a plane not to grieve because he loved it.

“He ate, slept and lived it.”

Her son, known as Pat to his friends and family, had completed his commercial pilot and instrument training and 1,300 hours of flight time. He needed 200 more hours for his commercial credentials.

On Wednesday morning, the engine of the Piper Saratoga that Pat Brinnon, 36, was piloting apparently failed shortly after his takeoff from Santa Monica Airport. When he attempted to return to the airport, he crashed into a garage behind a home in the Sunset Park section of Santa Monica, causing a fire that was extinguished within minutes.

Three years ago he moved to Northridge from the Northern California city of Eureka, where he had been working for a small cable television company. It was in Eureka that he discovered his love for flying and took his first lessons, his mother said.

“He decided to come back home, live with us and complete his credentials,” she said.

Upon completion of his training, Pat Brinnon hoped to return to Eureka and work as a spotter for the state Department of Forestry.

“From everything I’ve been told, he was an excellent pilot,” his mother said. “He wasn’t a hot dog.”

The fatal crash is the third in five months involving airplanes that were either taking off or landing at Santa Monica Airport, the busiest single-runway airport in the nation.

No one on the ground was injured in the crash.

The owner of the home where Brinnon crashed invited Brinnon’s father, Keith, and mother to visit the crash site and place flowers there in memory of their son.

“We don’t think we could handle that,” said Keith Brinnon. “Seeing it on TV was tough enough.”

Dolores Brinnon said her son’s ashes will be taken to Eureka and scattered into the Pacific Ocean.

“He liked it up there and that’s where his ashes will be taken,” she said.

Brinnon leaves a 2 1/2-year-old son, Cody Patrick Hocking, who lives with his mother in Redding in Northern California.