Student Pilot Dies in Plane Crash

A student pilot was killed Tuesday when his rented plane flipped and crashed on approach to John Wayne Airport, authorities said.

The Cessna 152 was coming in for a landing shortly after 5 p.m. when it suddenly plummeted upside-down to the ground, said Richard Parker, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board in Los Angeles. The pilot’s instructor was on the ground nearby, authorities said.

Investigators were focusing on the possibility that wake turbulence from a 757 jetliner that had landed a few minutes before the Cessna contributed to the crash. Although the investigation is continuing, Parker said the smaller plane’s behavior was “consistent with a wake turbulence accident.”

The pilot’s name was not released pending notification of relatives.

According to Parker, wake turbulence creates a powerful horizontal tornado.

“It’s reasonable to expect that a student pilot would have been trained” on how to avoid wake turbulence, he said. “We will be looking at the flight data recorder in the larger plane.”