2 Families Struggle in Aftermath of Plane Crash

As Reiner Bey left his son’s Newhall home Sunday night after working on the swimming pool, he told him, “We’ll have a good long talk when I get back from Minnesota.”

But Tuesday morning, Reiner Bey and his wife, Guadalupe, 43, of North Hills, took off from Van Nuys Airport in their single-engine plane on their way to seek prostate cancer treatment for him at a clinic in Rochester, Minn., and less than a mile later nose-dived in the fog into a house at Andasol Avenue and Hartland Street in Van Nuys.

Reiner Bey, who federal authorities said was not certified to fly in Tuesday’s overcast conditions, and his wife were killed. But the couple sleeping inside the house survived, escaping from the second floor on a chain ladder they had purchased two weeks earlier.

Reiner Bey’s son, Michael Bey, 37, said he was trying to suppress grief Wednesday so that he could concentrate on matters pertaining to his father’s estate. Reiner Bey, 66, was a licensed contractor who built and leased commercial property in California and Oregon.

Many people had a “love/hate relationship” with his father, said Michael Bey, who described the elder Bey as “a difficult man, but also the most kind and caring man you’d ever want to meet.”

Michael Bey said that he became estranged from his father when he was 7 years old for reasons he preferred to keep private, but that they reconciled 15 years ago.

“He approached me through my sister and invited me on a trip to Germany to see my relatives there,” Michael Bey said.

Bey said he and his father had become close.

“I’m glad I had the time I had with him,” Michael Bey said. “He loved my kids and they were deeply in love with him.”

Coroner’s officials said official identification of the bodies would be done with dental records next week.

Meanwhile, Nate and Carol Peiman, whose home was destroyed by the fallen aircraft, sifted through broken possessions Wednesday and swallowed hard so as not to cry or curse.

“We just went through this for the earthquake,” said Nate Peiman, 68, whose home of 20 years was also demolished more than four years ago by the Northridge earthquake. “I’m just very frustrated at the moment.”

The plane, which crashed about 5:15 a.m. Tuesday, landed within 20 feet of the Peimans, who were asleep. Nate Peiman was not injured and Carol Peiman suffered only a nicked finger, a broken nail and a bruised leg sustained while climbing down an emergency ladder the couple placed on their balcony Sunday.

While grateful that he and his wife survived, Peiman was realizing how much was destroyed.

“Yesterday, the first thing I thought was how fortunate we were for getting out of the house alive,” he said. “But now the injuries are more apparent--they’re not physical.”

The Peimans are staying with friends and discussing home repairs with their insurance company. Nate Peiman thinks the entire top half of the house will have to be rebuilt, and he plans to rent a townhouse in the meantime.

Los Angeles City Fire Department officials estimated the structural damage to the house at $75,000 and the loss of possessions inside the home at $30,000.

The 1997 Mooney M-20R Ovation plane was worth $300,000, firefighters said.

Reiner Bey bought the plane six months ago--one of several Mooney aircraft he had owned over the years. With more than 9,200 flight hours, Bey was an experienced pilot and used to take long trips to Central America and Mexico.

However, he was not certified to use the instruments necessary to fly in the overcast skies over much of the city Tuesday morning, according to George Petterson, a National Transportation and Safety Board investigator.

At Van Nuys Airport, where Bey kept his plane, friends said that they respected his aviation skills, but that he sometimes flouted regulations.

“He would take chances sometimes,” said Nick Mosich, who has known Bey for 10 years. “He sometimes would go up when he shouldn’t have. I was after him to get his instrument training.”

Petterson, who expects the crash investigation to take about six months, said Bey took off Tuesday almost an hour before airport personnel reported for work, and therefore was not questioned about his lack of certification.

Ron Kochevar, manager at Van Nuys Airport, said the control tower is open from 6:15 a.m. to 11 p.m., but that local officials in recent years have asked the Federal Aviation Administration to increase the hours the tower is staffed. The tower was staffed around the clock until the air traffic controller’s strike in 1981, Kochevar said.

“This unfortunate incident presents the opportunity to address the issue again,” he said.