4 Families’ Outings Lead to a Tragedy

From the sky came the enveloping roar, survivors said Friday. From the pine-trimmed picnic tables, they saw disaster coming.

Army Reserve helicopter pilot and real estate agent Michael Brand had radioed three maydays after takeoff. He was struggling to keep his Cessna airborne. It was also carrying Michael Adler, a friend and plumbing contractor.

At the park below, 17,000 people had gathered by noon on the Fourth of July. The just arrived Ngo-Ton family had planted fishing rods in the bank of Puddingstone Reservoir and unpacked the barbecue at a shoreline site.

Jackie Ngo-Ton, 12, eagerly awaiting the start of her first cheerleading camp in a few days, held Brendan Truong, the 16-month-old son of family friends.

Then the plane fell from the sky, showering the crowd with debris. Bystanders would lift the wing off Jackie and the toddler, who were killed, as were the two men in the plane.

In that instant, the lives of four Southern California families--plus those of 12 people who were injured--were indelibly linked.

Some tweaks of fate and it might have ended differently for the immigrant families: Jackie had almost gone shopping with her mother that day. And the Ngo-Ton and Truong parents might have been killed too, had they not been moving a smoking barbecue away from a windy shoreside spot, where their children were playing.

As the fathers of the two dead children prepared to bury them in graves side by side, investigators examined the wreckage and sought to reconstruct what had led to the crash at the lip of the reservoir, which anchors the Frank G. Bonelli Regional County Park in San Dimas.

The day had begun with the promise of fun and a sunny holiday.

A tall flagpole stands in front of Michael Brand’s house in Glendora, and the American flag was raised in honor of the nation’s birthday. A neighbor across the street raised a flag as well.

Brand, 44, a father of three, was cheerful and helpful, the kind who “makes it a good neighborhood,” said the neighbor, Jeff Smith.

Randy Wise, another neighbor who described himself as one of Brand’s best friends, said Brand had been like a magician, always able to pull something out of the hat to help a friend.

After Smith bought a chocolate Labrador, Brand showed up at his house with a book on raising that breed of dog.

“Any time you need anything,” Smith said, “he’s there for you.”

About 10 a.m. Thursday, Brand left his home for Brackett Field in La Verne. A little earlier, he had called and invited Alder to join him.

The veteran pilot, who flew helicopters and planes alike, only three months earlier had acquired a Cessna 310, a popular twin-engine prop plane that seats five.

He planned to pick up his wife, Deborah, later in the day, so they could watch fireworks from the sky.

Alder, 49, who lived with his wife, Cindy, and their four children in Glendora, was active in the Mormon Church, a neighbor said. His father, Reed Alder, had been a prominent doctor before recently retiring his San Dimas practice, and Alder owned a plumbing business.

According to Federal Aviation Administration records, Alder had a pilot’s license, though his certified him to fly only single-engine planes.

About a month ago, Cindy Alder said Friday, the same plane had given her husband and Brand a scare.

The landing gear failed to work as they were about to touch down. After a few tries, the gear eventually deployed, and Alder said a technician thoroughly checked the plane afterward for other problems.

Cindy Alder said Brand, with whom she worked at Century 21, was a good pilot.

“We had full confidence in his flying,” she said, adding that she believed Brand would have done “everything possible” to prevent the tragedy.

While Brand and Alder were at the airfield, 18 people from four families, including the Truongs of El Monte and Ngo-Tons of La Mirada, gathered for their Fourth of July picnic at Bonelli Park, about a mile away.

Normally, Kelvin Truong opens his Los Angeles furniture store every day, including July 4. His family usually celebrates at home, setting off fireworks at night.

This year, he said, he decided to shutter the shop, accepting a friend’s invitation to take his wife and two sons to the park. The families specifically went because of the options--swimming, fishing and rides--that their children would have for play, Truong said.

He said he had decided to go because Brendan was curious and active and liked the outdoors.

They planned to go for just a few hours, Truong said. About 4 p.m., they planned to head home for their traditional holiday fireworks.

Along with the Truongs was the Ngo-Tran family. Carol Ngo, Jackie’s mother, offered to take the girl shopping. But Jackie, who was known as a cutup who loved to laugh and make jokes, wanted to go to the picnic with her father’s friends from work. Her father, Nghlem Ngo-Ton, worked for Kelvin Truong.

The Ngo-Ton and Truong families had been at the park barely 30 minutes when other park visitors noticed a plane coming from the east.

Brand’s plane had lifted off the airport runway about 12:30 p.m. But, as investigators would say a day later, it wasn’t gaining altitude fast enough before it began a gradual descent.

“That plane is too low and it’s coming in,” said one park visitor, Rosa Franco.

Two hundred yards offshore, lifeguards Jeff Jones and Alan Taylor saw the Cessna as well. They told colleagues later that they had the same thoughts: That plane is too low.

Jason Ragogna, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said Friday that, contrary to earlier reports, Brand had not described trouble but had said “mayday” three consecutive times.

The plane gently banked left--as the pilot wanted, Ragogna said, as it headed along the eastern shore of the reservoir.

Then it clipped the top of a 30-foot tree, careened left and hit a second tree, which tore off the right engine, Ragogna said.

The plane then broke apart, and debris cascaded from it.

Kelvin Truong said he rushed to find his children. He discovered 8-year-old Raymond unhurt.

As people rushed to help the injured, rescuers lifted one of the plane’s wings. Beneath it they found Jackie, clutching Brendan. Raymond ran to his brother.

“Wake up, don’t sleep, wake up,” Truong remembered Raymond telling Brendan.

Within seconds of the crash, lifeguards Jones and Taylor began pulling the three children from beneath the wreckage.

Taylor quashed the flames of a barbecue struck by debris, fearing an explosion, said Steve Evans, the lake lifeguard supervisor.

“One of the pilots was in full [cardiac] arrest,” Evans said.

“There were bodies everywhere,” said Officer Eddie Ontiveros of the Los Angeles County Police, which patrols parks and other county facilities.

He arrived minutes after the crash and, with a deep understanding of the despairing fathers’ pain, Ontiveros embraced one of them.

“The only thing I could do was to hold him,” Ontiveros said. “A cop’s not supposed to do that. I know what it’s like to lose a child. I lost a 17-year-old daughter. But he lost a baby.”

Four would die--Jackie, Brendan, Brand and Alder. Twelve others were injured and three--Andy Ngo-Ton, 8; Connie Kang, 15; and Duk Song Kang, 52--remained hospitalized Friday.

Failure of at least one of the Cessna 310’s twin engines may have contributed to the crash, but a cause has not been determined, Ragogna said.

He said the condition of the propeller indicated that the engine had been losing power.

As recently as last month, friends said, Brand was piloting a Black Hawk helicopter as it hovered over Edwards Air Force Base as part of the space shuttle Endeavor’s landing team.

Brand had also flown medical relief helicopters, his friends said.

Brand was a former Army flight instructor, according to his colleagues at the Century 21 Alosta real estate office in Glendora.

“He loved to fly,” Pamela Ganas, a co-worker and friend of four years, said Friday.

“If I had to fly with anyone,” Ganas said, “it would have been Michael Brand.”

Of the crash, Cindy Alder said simply, “It was an act of God. It was their time to go.”

Brand, who had been married for 26 years, is also survived by three children--Justin, 24, Tamara, 20, Geoffrey, 16--and a grandchild.

“Nothing you guys can write can adequately pay tribute to him,” said Wise, his neighbor and close friend.

“His death left a huge hole in all of our lives and all of our hearts.”

On Friday night, the flags raised in honor of the nation’s birthday remained out on Brand’s street. Only now, they were lowered to half-staff.

*

Times staff writers Jose Cardenas, Cara Mia DiMassa, Eric Malnic, Jean Merl and Kenneth Reich contributed to this report.