Small Plane Crashes on Street

A sightseeing plane crashed onto a busy street Saturday immediately after a troubled takeoff from Fullerton Municipal Airport, narrowly missing onlookers and the flight tower but critically injuring the pilot and the co-pilot.

With only the two men aboard, the three-propeller plane -- a replica of a 1920s Ford Tri-Motor aircraft -- veered left off the runway while picking up speed for liftoff about 1:30 p.m., witnesses said. With the plane careening at about 75 mph toward a group of people on the tarmac, the pilot pulled into a steep climb -- then banked hard left to avoid slamming into the control tower.

“If he hadn’t pulled up, he would have plowed right into us,” said Gary Callahan, still holding the ticket he had purchased for a ride in the plane. “You could feel the air from the engines on your face, it went over us so low.”

After curling around the tower, the plane nose-dived onto Commonwealth Avenue, where it sideswiped a sedan with its wing and cartwheeled. The plane came to rest at the entrance of a car repair shop, a half-block from a residential street.

Richard Casperson, who was driving his pickup behind the sedan that was hit, said one of the plane’s propellers came within feet of the car with two women inside. “They were in shock and crying. I said, ‘What are you crying for? There’s an angel on your shoulders.’ ”

The women were taken to St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton with minor injuries, authorities said. The injured men were transported to UCI Medical Center in Orange in critical condition. None of those injured were immediately identified.

Several airport staff ran to the mangled plane from which they dragged the two men and put out fires.

Staff members at Tri-Motor Air Tours, which owns the plane, and airport authorities declined to discuss the cause of the crash. Other pilots who saw the crash, however, said the plane’s turn to the left on the ground and inability to right itself in the air indicated the left engine malfunctioned or stalled.

“This has all the characteristics of losing the left engine during takeoff,” said flight instructor John Edwards, who saw the crash from the flight tower.

Airport manager Rod Propst said officials from the National Transportation Safety Board were expected to arrive Saturday evening to begin their investigation.

The number of injured could have been much higher had the plane been filled with sightseers who were attending an airport open house. Like Callahan, many had paid $40 for the 20-minute rides the company planned to run -- but those flights were canceled just before the crash. Propst estimated the plane can carry about 10 passengers.

Propst said the plane was taking off on a “post-maintenance run” when it crashed, but declined to say what work had been done.

Since 1985, there have been at least 30 crashes at or near the Fullerton airport. In January 2002, an out-of-control, twin-engine plane narrowly missed homes in nearby Buena Park, exploding in a vacant lot, a half-mile short of the runway.