Taking Another Nose Dive : Finance: The flying symbol of Bruce McNall’s heyday will go on the block Sunday.

The biggest decision for the well-treated Los Angeles King players aboard shiny, glossy Air McNall used to run along the lines of: “Red wine or white?” “Skip the Caesar salad and save room for another Haagen-Dazs ice cream bar?”

But like its once high-flying owner, the 1966 Boeing 727-100 has landed in a similar state. It has been grounded by lack of money.

Bruce McNall’s former jet--which once shuttled his hockey players, celebrities and even future President Bill Clinton--now sits at the Ontario International Airport, where it will be auctioned Sunday afternoon.

The plane is another remnant of McNall’s free-spending days. Those now seem like ages ago, in the aftermath of his personal bankruptcy filing and his anticipated plea to four criminal counts related to a federal bank fraud investigation. The plane might be sold to another sports team or could even go unsold. There are scores of empty jets in airline graveyards out in the desert.

Each prospective buyer has to bring along a $100,000 check to be taken seriously. And, because the market is glutted and the plane was marketed unconventionally last year in a catalogue of Upper Deck Authenticated, the Carlsbad sports-collectible company, it is uncertain whether it will sell at all. In the catalogue offer, there was a promise that King players would autograph the plane.

Then again, the asking price was $5 million in 1993, far more than it is expected to fetch Sunday.

Armando L. Camarena, vice president with Nationwide Commercial Auction Systems of City of Industry, said that many surplus planes can be sold only for salvage and not certified for flying. He predicted that the former King plane would sell for $600,000 to $800,000.

Camarena said the plane is certified to fly by the Federal Aviation Administration, but needs about $1 million in improvements to bring it up to recommended safety standards for possible wind shear. It also needs modifications to reduce noise levels.

The plane was seized after a unit of Chase Manhattan Bank, owed about $4 million, obtained a judgment when McNall’s aviation company failed to make its payments. The company also had not paid a $307,131 maintenance bill to an Oklahoma City firm.

The plane’s value is nowhere near the $5 million McNall paid for it in 1990, when he boasted of purchasing it from the president of Mexico. Court records show it was recently appraised at only $410,000.

“He gave it up because it wasn’t worth the debt on it,” said Richard Wynne, a lawyer at the bankruptcy law firm of Levene & Eisenberg. Wynne is handling McNall’s personal bankruptcy case.

The plane has 24 leather first-class-style seats, 36 conventional fabric-covered seats in the back, and 12 television monitors. The Kings’ black and silver colors are visible throughout the interior and in stripes painted on the outside of the plane. It also includes a large galley and accommodations for three flight attendants.

One tape remains stuck in one of the VCRs: “In the Line of Fire,” an ironic title given McNall’s problems the last few months.

The plane has had an interesting history since McNall bought it. Once a cadre of celebrities--other than the King players--used the plane at different times. Clinton leased it for a couple of weeks during his campaign in the spring of 1992.

A planeload of celebrities--including actress Mariel Hemingway and actor James Belushi--and 25 other luminaries traveled to Toronto for the 1991 Canadian Football League debut of Rocket Ismail. As the plane taxied on the runway, a formation of 10 limos met the plane, with comic actor John Candy as a welcoming host.

It was all part of McNall’s image of success. He once told reporters that it is not bad in the collectibles and horse racing businesses if you are thought to have more money than you really do, because then you are offered more deals.

This philosophy, critical to his business approach, was illustrated in a proposed McNall Sports and Entertainment restructuring plan presented to Bank of America in September of 1993, which was filed among recent bankruptcy documents. One argument made to Bank of America by McNall and his business associates against liquidation or bankruptcy was that “the McNall good will, which is largely based upon his perceived financial success, would be destroyed.”

That is why it was so important for McNall, who was then besieged by creditors, to present a $275,000 Rolls-Royce convertible to King superstar Wayne Gretzky in a highly publicized ceremony on March 30, after Gretzky broke Gordie Howe’s NHL record for goals scored.

The Rolls-Royce was not paid for by McNall but by new King owners Jeffrey Sudikoff and Joseph Cohen. But then, the airplane, and so much of the entire McNall empire, all eventually crumbled under the inevitable price tag of such opulence.

Recent documents filed in McNall’s bankruptcy case suggest a remarkable record of spending and excesses:

Some examples:

--A former McNall employee, James Bailey, described stories of what he called abuse of corporate assets, in recent sworn testimony in McNall’s bankruptcy case. Bailey said one story making the rounds was that Suzan Waks, McNall’s chief financial officer, once flew to Toronto for a dinner and didn’t like her shoes.

“She had another pair of shoes flown up from Los Angeles at the company’s expense,” Bailey said.

Bailey also said another story had Waks ordering chicken soup, sent by messenger at company expense, from the Stage Deli in Century City to her home in Palos Verdes when she had a cold.

Waks’ attorney, Carla M. Woehrle, did not return calls and McNall’s attorneys have challenged the general credibility of Bailey’s statements.

--McNall once spent $2.8 million on personal expenses between January and July of 1992, according to Bailey’s statement. And in one month, according to Bailey, McNall spent as much as $736,000 in personal expenses.

Bailey described the situation as being “like a disaster,” and added, “I mean, I didn’t know where to start. . . . Well, that he was spending an incredible amount of money. The negative cash flow of the company was incredible.”

Cash flow, in whatever direction, and general opulence were part and parcel of McNall’s scene. At a party celebrating Gretzky’s first 100 games with the Kings, a former Times reporter, Tracy Dodds, accidentally knocked over and broke a rare piece of art at McNall’s art gallery in Century City. The price tag listed on the item was in excess of $200,000. Gretzky saw the incident and went pale. McNall laughed and cracked jokes about it.

Another time, McNall misplaced the 1956 World Series ring won by Mickey Mantle, valued at $250,000, leaving it on a stool in a TV studio. He eventually found the ring, but while it was missing, he acted more as if he had misplaced a soft drink.

His philosophy?

“Enjoy it while you have it,” he told a Times reporter in October of 1991. “I have yet to see a Brink’s truck following a hearse.”