Pilot Dies 8 Days After Being Burned in Pacoima Crash

With his family at his side and classical music playing in the background, a NASA engineer and concert violinist died Sunday morning of injuries sustained when the small vintage plane he was piloting on March 15 crashed in Pacoima.

Jordan Kaplan, 32, who was a mechanical engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, died at 8:40 a.m. Sunday at Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital, eight days after the fiery crash that also took the life of his friend Shoba Srinivasan, 28, of Arcadia.

Kaplan, who also played violin in local orchestras and ensembles, suffered third-degree burns over 93% of his body. Doctors said the burns were the worst external injuries they had seen on someone brought in for treatment.

Kaplan died of “multiple system organ failure,” said Larry Weinberg, a burn center spokesman. “Basically, his body was no longer able to function at the level necessary to sustain him given the size and complexity of his injuries.”

Kaplan and Srinivasan, who was also a violinist, had been scheduled to perform Sunday with the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra. That performance--featuring Haydn’s Symphony No. 99--was dedicated to them.

Music was just one of Kaplan’s passions, friends said Sunday as they gathered at his Pasadena home to play music, look through photographs and reminisce.

“He lived more in his short life than most of us will live in our entire lives,” said Alan Summerville, who first met Kaplan on their high school swim team nearly 20 years ago. “There was just so much he was packing in. Everything he got involved in, he just threw himself into. I don’t know how he did it all.”

Another violinist friend, Jennifer Argenti, played with Kaplan in a string quartet.

“My life is changed now,” Argenti said. “He became such a part of my daily life from being my friend to playing music together. My quartet’s not a quartet anymore.”

Kaplan and Srinivasan were heading to Northern California to visit friends and family when the plane crashed.

Services for Kaplan have been tentatively set for 2 p.m. Wednesday at Mount Sinai Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles. Kaplan’s family asked that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to the Children’s Burn Foundation at Sherman Oaks Hospital or to the Santa Monica Symphony Assn.