2 Killed As WW II-Era Plane Crashes in Santa Paula

Two antique aircraft enthusiasts were killed Friday when their World War II-era military training plane developed engine trouble, stalled, then plummeted into brush near the end of a Santa Paula Airport runway--the latest in a string of crashes at the airport.

Authorities said the pilot, Richard Wagner, 62, and his passenger, Thomas Kelly, 42, were killed on impact when their newly restored 1942-vintage Army Air Corps trainer crashed nose-first into hardpan soil about 200 yards short of the airport near the Santa Clara River. Wagner, of San Bernardino, was a welfare fraud investigator for Riverside County. Kelly, of Riverside, was a painting contractor, the coroner’s office said.

The incident was the second crash-landing near the privately owned airstrip in the last week, and one of about 30 since 1984.

Authorities said, however, that Friday’s crash and that of another small plane into a car on the nearby Santa Paula Freeway last Saturday were not caused by factors that have sometimes contributed to previous crashes--the lack of a control tower and the airstrip’s proximity to houses, mountains and the freeway.

“The airport itself was not a factor; it just has to do with happenstance,” said Bob Phelps, a retired Federal Aviation Administration inspector who heads the airport’s safety committee. “The terrain was not a factor; the weather was not a factor. It’s just that the planes arrive here and have problems. This is not a dangerous airport.”

Santa Paula Police Chief Walt Adair Jr., himself a veteran pilot, said witnesses indicated that the aircraft’s engine was popping as it approached the airport to land. Instead of continuing its path to east-facing Runway 22, the aircraft banked into a circle. Then, without enough lift to stay in the air, it stalled, went into a slow spiral and crashed from about 300 to 400 feet.

Authorities were trying to determine where the flight originated.

The silver plane with yellow wings and a red-and-white tail crumpled into the brush near the Santa Clara River but did not burn because emergency crews quickly sprayed foam over it, Adair said. The crash site was about 125 yards from parcels where two homes stood until they burned after a plane crashed into them in 1992.