Fearful Spouse of Pilot Got Off Airplane Just Before Fatal Crash

The wife of a pilot killed when his plane crashed Sunday got off the aircraft in the Antelope Valley just before the fatal accident because she feared flying on to Van Nuys, a family friend said Monday.

Charles C. Gray of Sherman Oaks, who operated a dental laboratory in Los Angeles, landed the twin-engine Cessna at Fox Field to allow his wife, Myrtle, to remain behind because she was afraid of flying and did not like the overcast weather, said the friend, who asked not to be identified. Gray told his wife that he would continue to Van Nuys Airport, get the family car and drive back to pick her up.

But as the plane flew over a Saugus neighborhood about 6:30 p.m. Sunday, residents said they heard a sputtering noise and saw pieces of the aircraft fly off before it crashed in a steep dive into a high-voltage transmission tower and lines, killing two people aboard.

The passenger, a male acquaintance of the family who had flown with the couple from Arizona, had not been positively identified by late Monday, a coroner’s spokesman said.

Gray was described by friends as an avid flyer who also worked as a volunteer in search and rescue missions to locate missing aircraft. He also developed a quadrant system used by rescue teams to search a large area of terrain from the air.

Meantime, residents of the neighborhood where the plane crashed were calling the pilot a hero Monday. They said he appeared to veer away from homes even as the aircraft was breaking up. The tail of the plane broke off before it “slammed like a bullet” into the wires and tower, then exploded, witnesses said.

Wreckage from the plane was strewn in the yards of four homes surrounding a cul de sac at the end of Featherstar Avenue, near Haskell Canyon and Bouquet Canyon roads. No one on the ground was injured.

“We were so lucky, we had angels living with us yesterday,” said Kathy Shea, as she viewed the pieces of a fuel tank and an airplane door scattered about her rear yard. Just seconds before the wreckage hit, she had called in her husband and granddaughter from the back yard to help prepare dinner, she said.

In a corner of the yard, near a gazebo, lay the mangled remains of two Barbie dolls left behind by her granddaughter, Brittany Gauldin, 8. The neatly manicured lawn and landscaping was turning brown from spilled fuel as federal investigators surveyed the wreckage. Shea said her husband had just finished preparing the yard for a bridal shower later this week.

“It was a very loud sound that totally encompassed us,” Shea said. “It was like a jet engine came in through the door. It was a horrible sound. I will never forget it. But that pilot saved all of our lives.”

Next door, neighbor Jeff Treanor had just picked up his 2-year-old son from the kitchen table to eat their dinner in front of the TV. He said normally they would have been sitting at the kitchen table next to a sliding glass door, but that his wife was away at a church meeting.

Pieces of the plane smashed the colorful play equipment outside the sliding door, spraying glass and debris all over the kitchen, puncturing holes in a wall, the ceiling and cabinets. Some cinder blocks bordering a patio were knocked into a yard across the street.

“It was a loud sound, like an earthquake about to hit,” Treanor said. “Then it was like camera flashes lighting up the house.”

He said he quickly put his son in his crib, ran outside, saw the wreckage on fire and downed power lines singeing the dried grass. He and other neighbors grabbed shovels to throw dirt on the fires. “Some of the wires were hanging down just 6 to 8 feet off the ground. We were yelling to each other to watch out.”

Hundreds of residents heard the sound and rushed to the scene from blocks away, witnesses said.

Investigators said the cause of the accident has not been determined.