Pilot Killed in Seal Beach Crash

A homemade plane nose-dived between two Seal Beach houses Wednesday morning, narrowly missing two residents of one house but killing the craft’s only occupant, identified by co-workers as a retired fighter pilot.

The crash occurred about 8:10 a.m. on Princeton Circle, less than a mile east of Cal State Long Beach. The impact caused minor damage to one house and an explosion that gutted part of another.

The two-seat Harmon Rocket II was registered to Ross Kay Anderson, 62, a former “Top Gun” instructor and U.S. Navy pilot, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and his Web page. Although the Orange County coroner’s office could not confirm the body was Anderson’s, friends and family at his office in Chino and at his Rancho Palos Verdes home were in mourning.

“I can’t believe he’s gone. He was such a dynamic individual,” said Barbara Arbuthnot, 76, a neighbor of Anderson’s. A woman answering the door at the Anderson home said the family had no comment.

The plane left Torrance Municipal Airport at 8:03 a.m. and was heading to Chino Airport, where Anderson commutes daily to his vintage-airplane restoration business. The air traffic controller lost radar and radio contact with the pilot about 8:15 a.m., while the plane was 5,300 feet above Seal Beach, said Donn Walker, a spokesman for the FAA.

“There was no indication at all that there was anything wrong with the plane or the pilot,” Walker said.

The plane crashed less than 10 feet from where Sharon Loe was sitting in her favorite chair in her family room.

Loe, 67, had just started to read the front page of her newspaper when she heard an explosion and felt searing heat.

“This ball of fire was coming after me,” she said. “I just thought to myself ... get up, get moving, get out of here. I thought the whole house had exploded.”

Her husband, Donn, 69, had just finished eating cereal and was upstairs changing into golfing clothes when he heard the explosion.

“I’ve never been in a battlefield,” he said. “I know what a bomb sounds like now.”

Uninjured, he ran downstairs clad only in his black golf shorts to find his stunned wife. Family photographs lining the walls had melted. The couple escaped the burning house as jet fuel, which splashed onto their home, fed the blaze.

The crash shook residents of the College Park Estates West area, a quiet neighborhood with well-tended homes nestled between the San Diego and Garden Grove freeways.

Neighbors Tina Casey and Marilyn Manley were taking their daily walk when Manley said she heard a strange sound and looked up to see the small plane struggling to gain altitude. Suddenly, it began a sharp descent.

“It was surreal to watch,” Manley said. “You knew what was going to happen.”

Sharon Loe’s hair and eyebrows were singed, and she suffered minor cuts from broken glass. She was treated for smoke inhalation at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center.

“It’s very unbelievable [that] she walked away,” said the couple’s son David.

Two hours after the crash, firefighters brought out a shaking Snickerdoodle, the Loes’ dog, who was found under a neighbor’s bed.

Grandparents of nine, the Loes appeared in good spirits when they returned to their charred home in the afternoon with their family. But Sharon Loe broke down when asked about the specks of blood on her robe.

“They’re not mine and they’re not the dog’s. The only other thing they can be had to be the person who was in the airplane,” she said. “I wasn’t going to cry because I’m so lucky to be alive.”

Two neighbors were taken to the hospital: an 87-year-old woman in a nearby home suffered an apparent heart attack, and William Peterson, 37, was treated for smoke inhalation and released. He tried to put out the fire with his garden hose, said Seal Beach Det. Stan Berry.

Ten firetrucks and 50 firefighters from the Orange County Fire Authority and the Long Beach Fire Department battled the two-alarm blaze, which was under control within 30 minutes of their arrival.

By 11 a.m., FAA officials began removing red and white pieces of twisted metal from the Loes’ smoldering home. Officials said the initial investigation may take up to five months.

Anderson, who would have turned 63 at the end of this month, was an experienced pilot who served in the U.S. Navy as an F-4 and F-8 fighter pilot, according to his Web page. After his service, Anderson received a master’s in business from Stanford University and a master’s in aeronautical engineering from Caltech before working for various engineering and manufacturing companies.

He was also a principal in Janes Capital Partners, a private investment group in Newport Beach.

On his Web page, Anderson said he spent most of his time in his garage building the Harmon Rocket II.

“My goal is to have it flying by year end -- God willing and the creek don’t rise,” he once wrote.

Anderson designed the instrument panel and spent hours building the wings, fuselage and tail of the two-seat, single-engine, 330-horsepower plane. He then took it to Massey Aircraft Service north of Bakersfield for final assembly.

The plane was registered with the FAA in May 2003. By December 2003, Anderson had logged 125 flight hours without problems.

The aircraft was featured on the Harmon Rocket website, with Anderson smiling behind the wheel and his wife, Susan, seated behind him. Other pictures show Anderson taking off.

News of the crash shocked those in the aircraft industry, who knew Anderson as a cautious and experienced pilot.

“We can’t function today,” said Karen Massey, owner of Massey Aircraft Service as she cried during a telephone interview. “I just want to close shop.”

A small group of Anderson’s employees huddled Wednesday as news of his plane’s crash reached the Square One Aviation hangar at Chino Airport, which was filled with three P-51 Mustang fighter planes in various stages of refurbishing. He bought the vintage-aircraft restoration firm in December 2003.

“[There are few who] do this type of work,” said Mark Wilson, president of another Chino-based airplane restoration company. “Now there’s one less of us.”

Times staff writers Jennifer Mena, Lance Pugmire, Jason Felch and Mary MacVean contributed to this report.