Crash in Gorman Leaves Pilot Dead

The pilot of a single-engine plane died and his passenger was in critical condition Monday after the aircraft crashed in a pasture beside the Golden State Freeway, authorities said.

The plane went down at 8:11 a.m. in the Grapevine, about 150 yards from the freeway, officials said.

Pilot Kevin Weil, 38, of Ridgefield, Wash., and passenger James McBee, 53, of Milwaukie, Ore., were flown by air ambulance to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia, where Weil later died. McBee was listed in critical condition late Monday with head and chest injuries, hospital officials said.

Married and the father of two young children, Weil was a “careful, experienced pilot,” who had logged 1,150 hours of flight time, his wife, Misty, said from the family home in Washington.

“He’s been flying a long time,” she said. “I just don’t understand how this could happen.”

McBee’s son Sean at the family’s home in Oregon said his father and Weil, who were business associates, took off Thursday on a pleasure trip.

The plane reportedly took off from Fox Field in Lancaster less than an hour before the crash, although officials there could not confirm the information because they do not keep records of takeoffs and landings.

Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration investigated the crash site Monday, but have yet to determine what caused the plane to go down. The weather in the Grapevine on Monday morning was cool and cloudy with no ground fog, said Los Angeles County fire officials who responded to the crash.

Weil was flying a 1973 Piper PA-28-140, a popular plane among pilots, said Mark Platt, an investigator for Textron Lycoming, the engine’s manufacturer.

“It’s a single-engine, four-seater--a very popular little general aviation plane,” said Platt, who was at the scene to assist federal investigators. “It’s like the Volkswagen of airplanes.”

Platt said the engine would be inspected thoroughly to learn whether there had been a mechanical problem.

“We’ll look at man, machine and environment to determine what happened,” he said.

Moments before the crash, the plane was flying low and dipping its wings from side to side, as though the pilot was trying to land on the freeway or on a nearby road, said a witness, Ellen Pace, 42, of Gorman. The plane’s propeller was not turning, she said.

“He was coming straight up the Grapevine from the south, flying really low and wobbling,” Pace said. “He was about 200 feet above the traffic. My first thought was, ‘What’s a crop-duster doing around here? There’re no crops to dust.’ Then I thought, ‘No. He’s in trouble.’ The propeller on the front wasn’t turning.”

Pace, a dispatcher for Ridge Route Towing in Gorman, said she was driving south on Peace Valley Road parallel to the freeway when the plane flew over her, missing her car by about 10 feet.

“I thought that guy’s going to land on this road, so I speeded up so it wouldn’t land on me,” she said. “It almost skid-marked across my car. He went right over me. It was close enough that I ducked my head.”