2 Light Planes Collide, Killing All 4 Aboard

Two light planes flying in clear, calm skies collided above a golf course here Monday morning, killing all four people aboard and sending horrified golfers below scurrying for cover.

One of the two-seat, propeller planes was descending to land at Van Nuys Airport and the other was patrolling a crude oil pipeline that runs from Bakersfield to refineries in Wilmington and El Segundo, federal aviation officials said.

“I was on the right side of the fairway and about to hit when we heard the explosion,” said Darryl Gordon, 38, of Santa Clarita, one of four friends playing the sixth hole when one of the planes crashed into the Cascades Golf Club.

“We just watched as everything unfolded in front of us,” he added. “Then we ran over a little embankment and jumped behind a little hill [for protection].”

Officials said the planes were headed in the same direction, although witnesses said they collided head-on. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the crash, which occurred shortly before 10 a.m. and involved an experimental Questair Venture and a Bellanca Citabria Scout.

Officials would not release the names of the victims. But a spokesman for Petersen Aviation, a charter company at Van Nuys Airport, identified the pilot of the Questair as Charlie Oliver, one of the company’s captains of Gulfstream aircraft and other corporate aircraft.

Joseph Molina, spokesman for Petersen, said company officials described Oliver as “an outstanding pilot” whose duties included flying dignitaries, entertainers and business leaders around the world. Molina said he did not know the identity of the woman flying with Oliver.

In addition, a pilot with the service surveying the pipeline said a National Transportation Safety Board official confirmed that the other downed plane was owned by Thomas Quist, 42, of Bakersfield.

Friends and relatives said Quist, owner of Patroline, left Bakersfield Municipal Airport on Monday morning with pilot Kevin Kaff, 22, also of Bakersfield, who was training to take over the route. The plane never returned.

Witnesses said the red Questair Venture nose-dived into a gravel clearing near the entrance to a Metropolitan Water District filtration plant, across the Golden State Freeway west of the golf course.

Investigators said the bodies of Oliver and a woman were found inside its twisted wreckage.

Jeff Horiguchi, 39, of Kagel Canyon, was traveling south on the Golden State Freeway when he saw the Questair plane fall to the ground.

“It was teetering, smoking and it was going down,” he said. “I parked and jumped out, hopped over the fence. I could see this guy was dead.”

The crash occurred near Newhall Pass, a main north-south route through high mountains that aviation experts call one of the nation’s busiest corridors for private planes.

As the Citabria fell from the sky at 9:48 a.m., it hit utility lines, exploded and came to rest in three places near the sixth hole of the new 187-acre Cascades course. No one on the ground was injured.

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Rescue workers pulled two badly burned bodies from the wreckage, but said they could not even determine the gender of the victims. Coroner’s officials said it would take at least a day to confirm the identity of those killed.

Federal Aviation Administration officials said the flying conditions did not require instruments and that the planes were operating under visual flight rules requiring pilots to watch out for one another.

The clear weather may have been a detriment, because it is often more difficult to see planes against clear skies than in the contrast provided by slightly overcast conditions, said Drew Steketee, spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assn.

“About 90% of midair collisions occur on a beautiful, clear day with excellent visibility,” Steketee said.

The Questair had radioed its approach to Van Nuys Airport moments before the crash, according to FAA officials, but they could not confirm early accounts that it had reported trouble.

“The experimental aircraft called the tower and told them that they were inbound,” said Kirsti Dunn, spokeswoman for the FAA. “When the tower responded, there was no answer.”

Officials said the Citabria was also communicating with the Van Nuys tower.

George Petterson, the lead NTSB investigator, said the Citabria was on its usual Monday-Thursday patrol of a crude oil pipeline through the Valley, and weather and flying conditions were good.

He said the planes crashed nine miles north of Van Nuys Airport and their courses ran parallel. He had no explanation for observers’ accounts of a head-on collision.

“That is what I need to find out,” Petterson said. He has requested radar data and voice tapes from the Van Nuys control tower.

Kaff, a part-time Bakersfield Community College business student, began flying with Quist weeks ago, according to the younger man’s brother, to make extra money while he put himself through college.

Ryan Kaff, 24, said his brother was inventive, planning to be an entrepreneur, and his love of flying was simply a hobby, along with fixing cars and building airplanes.

“He was a very responsible pilot,” Ryan Kaff said. “We got caught in an incoming storm and he kept it cool. He just said to buckle up tight and he’d take us down--and he did.”

He said he had called his brother’s pager in the early evening but did not receive a return call. The younger Kaff’s Mazda pickup truck was still parked at the airport Monday night.

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Another Bakersfield pilot said Quist and Kaff left in the early morning. As night fell, he closed Quist’s still-open hangar.

Harry Kraley, who has worked for Quist for 10 years, said his boss was passionate about flying and often flew his own experimental aircraft, a Harmon Rocket, on the weekends.

“When you do the type of flying we do, there’s a passion about it,” Kraley said. “It’s just a part of you. I’d just as soon stop breathing as stop flying.”

In May 1998, a pilot for Quist’s company, James Wesley Hines, was killed while doing pipeline surveillance work above Gorman. His plane crashed into the mountains.

The Citabria, introduced in 1965, is often used for search and rescue missions because its high wings and large windows give both the pilot and passenger a clear view all around them.

According to the registration number on the fuselage, the Questair was built in 1999 with a 300-horsepower engine. It was registered to a Santa Paula commercial airline pilot, who recently sold it to investors, according to a friend.

The Venture is “more on the order of a sports car” in the field of home-built airplanes, said Dick Knapinski, spokesman for the Experimental Aircraft Assn.

He said the plane can reach speeds of 300 mph--one of the fastest kit planes--and estimated the cost of the completed craft at more than $100,000.

“That plane was built to go fast, to get from Point A to Point B in a hurry,” Knapinski said.

Monday’s crash disrupted electric utility service to a wide area of Southern California. Power company officials said the Citabria hit support cables, which do not carry electricity. Edison officials could not determine whether the plane also hit a 220,000-volt line or pushed the dead cable into the live line.

But Edison said nearly all of its 4 million customers from Visalia to Orange County suffered a dip in voltage about the same time as the crash.

Also, about 33,000 Department of Water and Power customers in Van Nuys lost power for about three minutes shortly after the crash, a DWP spokeswoman said.

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Investigators had yet to determine why an incident involving an Edison line would have disrupted power for DWP customers.

“As soon as [the plane] hit the wires, it exploded,” said Eric Peterson, 39, of Arcadia, who witnessed the accident from his car. “The propeller was hanging off the wires, swaying back and forth.”

Another witness, Chris Messing, 37, of Newbury Park, said the Citabria “was already burning a little when it hit the power lines. There was an explosion. Then it rained debris and slammed into the ground.”

The tragic accident was not the first, or the deadliest midair collision over the San Fernando Valley--home to Van Nuys, Burbank and Whiteman airports--or other parts of Southern California.

On another clear, crisp winter day more than 40 years ago, a DC-7B transport plane and F-89 Scorpion jet interceptor collided over La Tuna Canyon, killing eight and scattering charred debris on the Pacoima Junior High School athletic field and Terra Bella Elementary School playground.

In August 1986, an Aeromexico DC-9 collided with a Piper Archer PA-28 over Cerritos, crashing into a residential neighborhood and killing 82 people in both planes and on the ground.

Times staff writers Jonathon E. Briggs, David Colker, Irene Garcia, Karen Robinson-Jacobs, Hilary E. MacGregor, Kristina Sauerwein and Margaret Talev contributed to this story, as did special correspondent Richard Chon in Bakersfield.

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CONGESTED AREA

Newhall Pass is followed by many private planes. B1

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Midair Collision

Four people were killed shortly before 10 a.m. Monday when two two-seat planes collided in midair. One was descending for a landing at Van Nuys Airport and the other was patrolling an oil pipeline.

1. After the collision, the Bellanca Citabria struck power lines and came to rest near the sixth hole of the Cascade Gold Club.

2. The Questair Venture nose-dived into a gravel cleaning.

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1. Bellanca Citabria 2. Questair Venture Scout (kit specifications vary) Two Seating Two 22’9” Length 16’3” 36’2” Wingspan 27’6” 8’8” Height 7’8 1/2” 1,315 lbs. Weight 1,200 lbs. 2,150 lbs. Max. Takeoff Weight 2,000 lbs. 180 hp Horsepower 300 hp 122 mph Cruising Speed 276 mph 384 miles Range 1,185 miles 18,000 ft. Service Ceiling 29,000 ft.

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Visual Flight Rules (VFR)

George Petterson, National Transportation Safety Board investigator in charge, said the weather and flying conditions were good. The pilots did not need to use instruments and the planes were operating under visual flight rules.

* Pilots must be able to see other aircraft to maintain separation.

* Aircraft may not take off if the cloud cover is lower than 1,000 feet.

* The visibility in the air must be three miles or better.

* Aircraft must stay out of clouds and fly 500 feet below, 1,000 feet above or 2,000 feet horizontally from clouds.

Source: Jane’s All the Worlds Aircraft; FAA; NTSB

--- UNPUBLISHED NOTE --

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association advises that the airplane patrolling the pipeline is more properly identified as a Bellanca Scout, omitting Citabria. The National Transportation Safety Board refers to the aircraft as a Bellanca, Model 8GCBC.

--- END NOTE ---