4 Firefighters on Ski Trip Die in Plane Crash

Four off-duty Corona firefighters on their way to a long-planned ski vacation at Lake Tahoe perished before dawn Tuesday when their single-engine plane crashed into a rugged, fog-shrouded slope near Chino Hills State Park.

A witness called authorities shortly before 5 a.m. to report that he had heard the Beech Bonanza circling overhead, then heard a crash and saw a fireball. The crash ignited a small grass fire that died out.

The aircraft had taken off moments earlier from nearby Corona Municipal Airport. It was not known whether the limited visibility was a factor in the crash.

The crash site was within the city limits of Chino Hills, on the western edge of San Bernardino County. However, the area was so remote that it took emergency crews nearly 90 minutes to negotiate the terrain of saw-toothed ridges and sheer cliffs and locate the wreckage in the darkness.

They discovered the bodies of four men, along with clothing and paraphernalia that bore the markings of the Corona Fire Department.

Corona fire officials were devastated by the deaths--the first of active firefighters in their department’s more than 100-year history.

They identified the deceased as: Daniel Alleman, 27, who had been a firefighter since 1994; Donald Butts, 28, of Irvine, a firefighter since 1993; Michael A. Chantry, 36, of San Clemente, who had been with the department since 1985; and John Y. Jefferies III, 25, of Santa Ana, who had been hired in 1996. Alleman’s home town was not provided.

All four were married, and officials said that Chantry had a child.

Steve Bull, a commercial helicopter pilot based at the Corona airport, identified Chantry as the pilot. Friends said Chantry owned the plane.

A National Transportation Safety Board investigator from Los Angeles was at the scene to try to determine the cause of the crash.

Corona Fire Chief Michael Warren said that news of the deaths was “having a devastating impact” on the 102-member department.

“The city of Corona employees are very much a family, and as you can appreciate, the Fire Department is an especially close family,” he said.

“We live together. We work together. We share each other’s lives quite closely. This is a very personal and difficult time for all of us. . . . All four of these firefighters were extremely valuable members of the department.”

Jan Rudman, mayor of the Riverside County city, said, “We feel such a profound grief in this community.”

“We know these men,” Rudman added. “We know who these firemen were. They are not strangers.”

Fire Capt. John Medina sobbed as he spoke with reporters in the garage of one of the city’s five fire stations.

“We’re trying to come to grips with it,” he said. “We’re rattled. . . . It’s such a small department, you get to know everyone really, really well.”

*

Times staff writer Deborah Schoch and correspondent Chris Ceballos contributed to this report.