Two Die, Two Hurt Seriously in Separate Plane Crashes

Two bodies and the wreckage of a small plane that apparently had crashed two days earlier were discovered Friday on the north slope of Sierra Peak, along the Orange-Riverside County line.

The crash was the first of two plane accidents reported Friday in Southern California. On Santa Catalina Island, a Northern California couple suffered serious injuries after their private plane crashed while landing.

In the first accident, the Cessna 210 appeared to have struck the hillside and bounced several times before coming to a rest about 1,000 feet from the initial impact, investigators at the scene said. Both passengers died after being ejected from the single-engine plane.

“It didn’t miss by much,” said Orange County Fire Capt. Dan Young. “Another 20 feet and they would have cleared the ridgeline.”

There was no evidence of fire.

Young said debris from the wreckage was scattered over about 1,200 feet, and that the crash appeared to have occurred about two days before searchers found it. Federal Aviation Administration officials said they had no recent reports of a late or missing aircraft, indicating that the pilot may not have logged the flight with airport officials.

A man possibly in his 60s was found near the plane’s fuselage; another victim was lying 30 to 50 yards from the initial impact. Authorities had not determined the gender of the second victim, Young said.

Documents including a flying log indicated that the pilot was an experienced aviator.

“Whoever was flying with that flight log has a lot of hours,” Young said. “But I don’t know if that person was in that plane.”

The search began about 1 p.m. when an FAA flight service operator in Riverside County called the Orange County Fire Authority to pass along a report he had received of a downed aircraft, Shell said.

“It was reported by a Marine helicopter flying through the basin,” said Gary Olson, an FAA flight services area supervisor.

Less than half an hour after receiving the call from the FAA, Shell said, a crew on a fire authority helicopter found the mangled plane. By about 1:45 p.m., firefighters had reached the wreckage and found the bodies, Shell said. Riverside County sheriff’s deputies and crews from the California Department of Forestry and U.S. Forest Service helped in the search, and at least five detectives from the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates plane accidents, were on scene.

The plane was found in a ravine about three miles southwest of the Green River Golf Course, near neither roads nor trails, said Orange County Fire Authority spokesman Dennis Shell.

The terrain was so steep and rugged that helicopters could not land where the crash occurred. Searchers had to be dropped off by helicopters 700 feet away and hike down the hillside, at times harnessing themselves with ropes to avoid a fall, authorities said.

The crash occurred in a corridor often frequented by pilots flying through the Santa Ana Canyons, Young said. In February, a military plane crashed in the same vicinity while on a training flight out of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, killing two Navy aviators, fire officials said.

“Winds in these canyons can change in an instant. It could be blowing in three different directions at the same time,” Young said.

Fire officials did not know from where the Cessna had originated, although the Chino and Corona airports are nearby. The two victims have not been identified and authorities are still investigating what caused the accident.

The teams left the site Friday evening as the sun set and wind conditions worsened in the rugged canyon, but authorities planned to return today to begin the recovery of the plane and bodies.

In the other plane crash, on Santa Catalina Island, a man and woman were cut from the wreckage of a single-engine plane that crashed near the runway of the Airport in the Sky.

“It crashed in a canyon while approaching the airport,” said Sgt. John Domen of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Catalina station. “Witnesses watching the approach said it just disappeared.”

The victims were identified as Kimberly Ledbetter, the pilot, and her husband, Joseph.

Members of the Sheriff’s Department, the county Fire Department and the Avalon Search and Rescue Team used the “jaws of life” to pull the couple from the wreckage, which came to rest about 100 yards down the side of the canyon.

The pilot was airlifted to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance and her husband to St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach. Both suffered broken bones and abrasions, sheriff’s officials said.

Times staff writers Thao Hua and Scott Martelle contributed to this report.