Plane crashes into two homes
Monday, November 27, 2006
By AMY TAXIN, TERI SFORZA and KATHERINE NGUYEN
The Orange County Register
BUENA PARK, Calif. – A small plane that officials said radioed it had engine trouble crashed into two homes Sunday evening near the Fullerton Airport runway in Orange County, Calif.
The craft's two male occupants were rushed to a hospital, one in critical condition, said Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Stephen Miller. No one on the ground was hurt.
The small Beechcraft clipped the roof of a house in the 6300 block of Indiana Avenue at about 5:10 p.m., tore through a backyard concrete wall and crashed into another home on Verdi Drive, officials said.
Both houses were empty at the time. Four homes nearby were temporarily evacuated as a precaution.
"The lucky thing is, there was no fire," Miller said.
Kelli Ambrozic, who lives next to the house first hit by the plane, was hanging Christmas lights when she heard a sputtering engine noise.
"I turned around and saw it coming in super low," said Ambrozic, holding her Pomeranian, Missy. "I could tell it was going to hit my neighbor's house. It hit the house hard."
Dennis Johnson, 69, said he rushed into the back yard of the house on Verdi with other neighbors when he heard the crash. He said he was unable to open the passenger door of the plane.
Timothy Ambrozic, Kelli's husband, described the scene as one of the airplane's occupants was rescued.
"He was yelling and screaming to stop, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. They just repeated, just a little more, pull him out just a little more," Timothy Ambrozic said.
Dozens of residents massed by the fire engines, as a helicopter droned overhead and shined light on the scene. Several streets were blocked off with yellow police tape and utility workers checked for problems. Children crowded around on bicycles.
The cream-colored plane was believed to be coming from Oregon, and the occupants were expected to fly to Redding later Sunday night, said Fullerton Airport Manager Rod Propst, who described four-to-six seat plane as "high end."
The pilot, whose name was not disclosed Sunday, had additional training to fly on instruments only, Propst said.
After he declared an emergency, the tower cleared him to land on runway six.
"They declared an emergency and they were a mile short of the runway, which is pretty close," Propst said at the crash site.
The plane is registered to St. Elmos Aviation Leasing LLC, based out of Bend, Ore.
The cause of the engine trouble was not known Sunday night. Miller said federal aviation investigators would arrive today.
The Fullerton Airport is the only general aviation airport in Orange County. It is centrally located in the Los Angeles basin, and is adjacent to Interstate 5 and Highway 91. The airport is three miles from Knott's Berry Farm and six miles from Disneyland.
More than a dozen planes have crashed or made emergency landings at or near the airport in recent years, including one plane that flew into a 760-foot radio tower in 2004, killing a husband and wife.
Neighbor Gary Jordan said he's renting the house he lives in with an option to buy, and is now feeling nervous about that.
He and his daughter Loretta had to evacuate five dogs, two cats and two lizards – to their car.
Scott Lessard, 55, a project manager for a construction company, owns the four-bedroom house on Verdi where the plane landed. He now lives in Moreno Valley, and had been trying to rent the house since the last tenants moved out in September
"Anybody who wanted to move into the house is pretty lucky they didn't make that choice," he said.
Said his wife, Via, "It's a miracle because it dropped on an empty house."
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