Airplane Accidents Los Angeles County

A man was killed Sunday when his glider crashed into a peach orchard east of Palmdale, Federal Aviation Administration officials said. The unidentified man was pronounced dead at the scene following the crash, Los Angeles County fire officials said. The accident occurred about 2:30 p.m. near the Crystalaire Airport, a popular glider port in Llano, officials said. The incident is being investigated by the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board.

Ask about that day five decades ago, and they'll calmly tell you they easily could have been among the 35 who perished. One survivor credits a guardian angel, a divine protector that followed him from rescue to hospital recovery. Another says it was a gift from her Lord. The newspaper headlines and newsreels have long since faded from most memories. And the boulder-strewn Chatsworth mountainside is now silent and peaceful except for an occasional jack rabbit.

The pilot of a single-engine airplane was killed when the aircraft crashed and burned along a mountain ridge in a remote section of the Angeles National Forest, authorities said Sunday. The pilot of the Cessna 206--the plane's only occupant--had not been identified late Sunday. The aircraft matched the description of a plane that departed Mammoth Lakes in Mono County and was last in contact with air-traffic controllers at Burbank Airport at 6:30 p.m.

A federal judge Thursday delayed for a week a decision on whether to declare a mistrial in the civil case to establish fault for the 1986 midair collision between a private plane and an Aeromexico DC-9 over Cerritos in which 82 people were killed. U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon said he wants to hear more arguments before he rules Nov. 10 on a U.S.

A C-130 firefighting aircraft on its way to a blaze in Kern County exploded in midair Saturday, killing the three people on board and sending a huge fireball vaulting into the sky after the plane crashed in rugged canyon country in the Antelope Valley, authorities said. The aircraft, which was carrying fire retardant, broke into pieces and sparked two small brush fires on the side of Pallet Mountain, about 25 miles south of Palmdale in Angeles National Forest.

Officials from Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station released the identities Thursday of two Navy pilots who died after their small plane crashed this week near Lake Hughes in the Angeles National Forest. Lt. Kent M. Kiepe, 29, of South Festus, Mo., and Lt.(j.g.) Craig R. Melton, 24, of Lake Latawana, Mo., were en route Wednesday to the China Lake Naval Weapons Center, about 70 miles northeast of Bakersfield, when they reported engine trouble, Navy officials said.

A light plane that developed engine trouble after taking off from Whiteman Airport on Thursday night crashed into two houses and burst into flames, killing two passengers and setting the houses afire. The pilot escaped the wreckage but was hospitalized in critical condition with cuts and burns. It was at least the sixth crash in the neighborhood since May of last year involving planes coming to and from Whiteman Airport. The prior crashes caused at least one death.

Sandra Tucker Bliss wiped tears from her eyes at a memorial service Wednesday as she read aloud a letter from the father she barely knew. Army Air Force 2nd Lt. Loncie L. Tucker Sr. wrote of his deep devotion to his wife, Rae Haynes Tucker, and 5-year-old daughter, Sandra, in a letter dated October / November 1942. "May your heart always be happy in knowing that my babies will always be my inspiration," Tucker wrote while serving at Eagles Field in Dos Palos, near Fresno.

A man flying a radio-controlled model airplane from a nearby field intentionally buzzed the Goodyear blimp Columbia before ramming it Sunday, puncturing its skin and forcing the shipto make an emergency landing at its airfield in Carson, authorities said. No one was injured. The blimp, with seven people aboard, was en route to its base at 19200 S. Main St. in Carson at 4:30 p.m.

A single-engine experimental airplane crashed in the ocean in heavy fog off Santa Monica shortly before noon Monday, killing the pilot. William Wallace Reid, 72, a Westside architect of condominiums and apartments and the son of silent film star Wallace Reid, lost contact with the Santa Monica Airport control tower about 11:30 a.m. He had left the airport about half an hour earlier, said Santa Monica Airport Director Jeff Mathieu.