Cessna Crashes Near John Wayne

A Newport Beach pilot crashed his single-engine plane Monday afternoon on approach to John Wayne Airport, barely clearing a parking lot and clipping a chain-link fence before slamming into a concrete barrier just short of the San Diego Freeway.

For all that, Norman L. Kreuder averted disaster. He suffered only minor injuries, and no one on the ground was hurt. There were no passengers on board.

As Kreuder, 70, was being treated for a concussion, bruises and cuts at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, the wreckage of his 1949 Cessna 195 sat for several hours on a freeway connector at the northeastern edge of the airport.

The 12:39 p.m. crash slowed traffic on the San Diego Freeway but caused less congestion than a typical jackknifed big rig. Authorities closed two of the seven northbound lanes for about three hours to make room for a fleet of airport emergency vehicles.

Commercial traffic at the airport was closed for about 10 minutes after the crash.

Kreuder’s five-seat plane wound up on a single-lane road linking the airport terminal to the northbound Costa Mesa Freeway. The connector was closed until shortly before 5 p.m., when the wreckage was lifted by crane to an adjacent parking lot.

Federal aviation and airport officials said late Monday that the cause of the crash was not known. A National Transportation Safety Board team was investigating.

Witnesses said Kreuder’s plane appeared to be wobbling and its engine idling as he flew over a parking lot next to an Irvine office park. Only a tall chain-link fence and a waist-high concrete barrier stopped him from landing on the busy San Diego Freeway, which was between him and the runway.

“He came in really, really low,” said Richard Meeker, a sales executive who was in the parking lot at the time. “He was kind of floating. I said, there’s no way that guy’s going to make it over the freeway. Then I heard the impact. It was like a loud crunch.”

Cindy Parker, an office administrator working inside the complex at the time, described the sound as a thump. “We have trucks coming by all the time that make as much noise,” she said.

Two dozen firefighters based at the airport responded within minutes and found Kreuder outside the plane, sitting against the concrete barrier. The engine did not catch fire, though fuel was leaking. Kreuder was taken away on a stretcher, and fire-retardant foam was sprayed on the plane.

“I think he’s lucky. I think he’s very lucky,” said Kathleen Campini Chambers, the airport’s manager of community relations.

Chambers said Kreuder had been in contact with the airport control tower and was headed toward runway 19L, which is reserved for general aviation. She said officials did not know where his flight began or how long he had been in the air.

Kreuder’s plane has been based at the airport since at least 1990, officials said.

John Wayne is a popular venue for general aviation, with 366,316 takeoffs and landings logged in 1996. That was more than four times its volume of commercial traffic.

The last plane crash near John Wayne occurred on Nov. 30. A Paris Jet Morane Suliner 760 plummeted to the ground that day shortly after takeoff, killing all three people aboard.

Kreuder was expected to stay overnight at Western Medical Center, said Laura Hennum, a hospital spokeswoman. He told his doctor he did not wish to be interviewed, she said.

Times staff writer Scott Martelle contributed to this report.