Two 18-Year-Olds Die in Small Plane Crash

Two Orange County teenagers died early Saturday when their single-engine plane crashed into the hills just north of this city, officials said.

The crash occurred shortly after midnight when a Cessna 152 struck a hill half a mile north of Emma Wood State Beach, Ventura County Sheriff’s Senior Deputy Harold Hanley said. The plane was fairly intact after the crash, he said.

Erik Marshall Lind and Tyson Michael Stearns, both 18 and of Huntington Beach, were declared dead about 9:45 a.m. Saturday, according to the Ventura County medical examiner’s office. Officials said Lind was the pilot.

The plane left Santa Barbara Airport at 10:26 p.m., according to the Federal Aviation Administration. FAA officials said the destination was unknown because Lind did not file a flight plan, which is not mandatory. Though the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash, Hanley said the weather conditions probably created low visibility. He said Lind appeared to be trying to turn the plane.

“According to the rudders and the position of the plane, it looked like they were in the turning motion,” he said. “They apparently ran into fog, decided it wasn’t such a good idea to fly, tried to turn around and didn’t make it.”

The visibility in Santa Barbara at 10:30 p.m. Friday was four miles amid low clouds and haze, according to WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts to The Times.

Authorities were unaware of the crash until the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department picked up an aviation signal at 8 a.m. Saturday. That agency then called the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, which immediately dispatched a helicopter and a search and rescue team to the scene.

At 9:15 a.m., searchers located the crash site and discovered the pilot’s body. Upon notifying his father, the team was informed that there was a passenger. Rescuers returned to the site, where they found the second victim a short distance from the plane, sheriff’s officials said.

Senior Deputy Coroner Craig Stevens said the cause of the deaths appeared to be “blunt force impact wounds to the whole body as a result of the impact of the mountain.”

The coroner’s office will conduct autopsies on both victims today.