U.S. Plane Crash Investigators Haven’t Made It to Pendleton Site Where 4 Died

Three days after wreckage from a private plane was discovered on a rugged ridgeline at Camp Pendleton, federal investigators still had not visited the crash site where four people died, including two doctors from Orange County.

Cpl. Donald Preston, spokesman at the Marine base, said Wednesday that investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board had not been to the site and wreckage still is littered over the isolated area. The bodies were recovered Monday.

“Right now, about all we’re doing is securing the wreckage,” Preston said.

NTSB investigator George Petterson could not be reached for comment Wednesday. But in an interview Tuesday, Petterson said the rugged terrain made access to the area difficult.

A 40-year-old Piper Apache PA-23 on Friday flew into the north side of a canyon at Camp Pendleton, a few miles southeast of the Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 5. Anthony W. Shanks, the pilot and owner of the plane, and co-pilot Randy V. Breding, both of Sacramento, were killed in the crash.

They were flying two physicians, Dr. Francis Markoe Dugan Jr. and Dr. George Braul, to a medical mission in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

Although the cause of the crash is under investigation, federal officials believe weather was a factor. Petterson said that Shanks took off from John Wayne Airport and chose to fly under visual flight rules, despite fog and low clouds that covered the area.