Bodies of 2 Plane Crash Victims Recovered

The bodies of two Orange County men who died in a private plane crash last week were recovered Saturday from a remote area of San Benito County, officials said.

Pilot Howard Goldman, 62, of Fullerton, and his passenger, John Dussard, 47, of Placentia, died Thursday evening when Goldman’s plane crashed into a hillside about 30 miles northwest of Coalinga, said San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill.

The two had been flying from Sacramento to Fullerton when Goldman told Oakland air traffic control at 6:45 p.m. that his twin-engine Beechcraft Baron was having trouble with ice, Hill said.

“He reported a mayday and they were going down,” Hill said. Goldman had been flying at about 13,000 feet, he said, and there had been reports to aviators at 6 p.m. of “a severe storm with ice forming at 6,000 feet.”

Goldman ran a heavy-equipment rental business called Southern Counties Equipment Rental, and Dussard owned Pilots in Command, which rented helicopters and other aircraft, he said.

Six CHP and Civilian Air Patrol craft found the crash site about noon Friday, but officials were unable to reach the plane until Saturday because of high winds. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident.

The locale is so rugged in the coastal mountains where the plane went down that investigators had to walk 15 minutes to reach the site from the nearest helicopter landing spot, Hill said.

Hill said the two had been to Sacramento for a dental appointment.