2nd Plane in Long Beach Crash Found

A salvage team using sophisticated sonar equipment has found one of the planes involved in a February collision that killed two men from Orange County and two from Los Angeles County, authorities said.

Sea Tow’s salvage team announced Thursday that the Cessna 152 has been found and that searchers think the bodies of Kevin Sok and Michael Wallace are inside the aircraft.

The two-seat Cessna 152 and a four-seat Cessna 172 collided Feb. 15 off the Long Beach breakwater. Both planes were from the Long Beach Flying Club. Each was on a training flight and carried an instructor and student when the planes collided at 1,000 feet, authorities said.

The bodies of flight instructor John Michael Chisolm, 56, and his student, flight instructor trainee Stephen Arlow, 42, both from Huntington Beach, were recovered previously.

A dive team from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was expected to search underwater Friday for the bodies of Wallace and Sok. The divers were requested by the county coroner’s office, officials said.

Sok, 33, a native Cambodian from Long Beach, was a flight instructor. Wallace, 18, of La Habra Heights, was a student on his first flight.

The accident occurred in a training area heavily used by student pilots and their instructors. Witnesses said one of the planes was banking to the left when it broadsided the other aircraft.

National Transportation Safety Board officials said shortly after the crash that results of their investigation would not be available for several months.