Pilot, Teacher OK in Crash-Landing

A twin-engine plane crash-landed Friday at Camarillo Airport, when a flier miscalculated the wind.

Pilot Roger Baumgartner, 63, said he was practicing a single-engine landing about 2 p.m. when he misjudged wind direction and the plane stalled about 50 feet above the runway.

Neither Baumgartner nor his flight instructor, Valley Village resident Barry Leff, were injured.

“We dropped like a rock, cartwheeled and looked at each other and said, ‘Thank God,’ ” Baumgartner said.

The plane landed on its wheels on the runway’s apron, then fell onto one side, spun and lost a wheel before coming to rest about 100 feet down the runway.

The impact snapped the right wing and heavily damaged both engines and the nose cone. Baumgartner of Northridge said the $70,000 Piper Twin Comanche he has owned for about 10 years is a total loss.

The 43-year-old Leff said everything happened too quickly to react. “Even though I wasn’t flying the airplane, I always thought I could fix any situation that went wrong. But in the time this happened, it was over,” he said.

A crane hoisted the plane so its fuel could be drained, then the aircraft was loaded onto a truck and taken to a hangar.

The pilot and instructor said they planned to get back home by calling a friend for a lift--in an airplane. “If you have a car accident, you don’t refuse to get in a car,” Leff said.