Surgeon hurt in California plane crash
Aircraft hit two homes in emergency landing that may have been an attempt to land on a street.
By Jim Schultz, Record Searchlight
November 29, 2006
A Redding, Calif., orthopedic surgeon and his son were hurt Sunday when the single-engine Beechcraft airplane they were flying crashed into two houses in Buena Park in Southern California.
Dr. John Charles Lange, an orthopedic surgeon with Shasta Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine, was trapped in the wreckage for about 30 minutes, authorities said Tuesday. He was taken to UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange, where he initially was reported to be in critical condition.
A hospital spokeswoman said Tuesday she could not release Lange's condition at the request of his family. Officials said they think Dr. Lange is 51.
Orange County firefighters and sheriff's deputies said they did not have the name of the son, thought to be in his 20s or 30s. The younger man was said to have suffered serious injuries after being thrown from the plane, but may have since been released from the hospital.
No one on the ground was hurt.
Capt. Stephen Miller of the Orange County Fire Authority said Tuesday that it was a miracle that anyone survived the crash.
"It's absolutely incredible that they survived this thing," and that the small plane did not burst into flames, he said.
Miller said the plane, which was manufactured in 1987 and registered to St. Elmos Aviation Leasing in Bend, Ore., crashed around 5 p.m. Sunday approximately a half-mile from its destination, Fullerton Municipal Airport.
The men had departed Redding's Benton Airpark around 1 p.m.
In what might have been an attempt at an emergency landing on a residential street, the plan clipped the roof of a home, crashed through a block wall and slid into a second house, which was unoccupied, Miller said.
"It went completely through a bedroom and (partially) into a bathroom," he said.
Tenants had been scheduled to move into the home on Monday, Miller said.
Zoe Keliher, an air safety inspector with the National Transportation Safety Board, said although it has not been determined who was flying the plane, the pilot apparently radioed the airport tower to report engine trouble.
A preliminary report on the crash is expected to be finished in about a week, but a final report could take at least six months, she said.
Karl Alam, owner of Hillside Aviation at Benton Airpark, said Tuesday that Lange frequently flew the private plane from there for at least the last two years.
"It was a pretty nice airplane," he said, describing Lange has an experienced pilot and a friendly man.
Telephone calls to Shasta Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine on West Street were referred to administrator Gary Whiteaker, who could not be reached for comment.
The California Medical Board's Web site says Lange graduated in 1989 from UC Davis School of Medicine and that his physician's license was issued in 1991.
According to the Shasta Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine Web site, Lange interned in the surgery department at UCI Medical Center, where he also completed his orthopedic residency training in 1994.
He joined the staff at the Redding practice in 1994. He and his wife, Cindy, have five children, the Web site says.
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