Santa Monica Airport

I'm sorry Jim Winnerman's article "Wing and a Prayer" [Aug. 23] missed one of the country's finest biplane rides, especially since it's here at Santa Monica Airport. Black & White Biplane (www.blackandwhitebiplane.com) operates one of the most beautiful WACO biplanes in the world. Black & White also is the only carbon-neutral ride operation in the U.S. (we purchase carbon offsets) and has a perfect safety record. L.A. offers wonderful aerial tour possibilities, with coastline and ridges and everything in between, from the Queen Mary to the Hollywood sign.

Each season that the semiannual Barneys New York Warehouse Sale comes to the Los Angeles area, it poses several philosophical questions: Is a $545 dress worth $545 just because it's been marked down from $1,800? No, according to one shopper, who put it back. Is it OK to deprive a toddler of his morning nap so he will snooze in his stroller while his mother shops? Indeed, said one multi-tasking parent. This summer, the Warehouse Sale, held for the last 14 years in a hangar at the Santa Monica Airport, changed mother ships and landed in the Los Angeles Convention Center, provoking another question: Would Westside devotees of high-end fashion leave their comfort zone and venture east?

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's private jet made an emergency landing at Van Nuys Airport Friday after the pilot reported smoke coming from the cockpit, according to a statement released by the governor's press secretary. The jet was about 10 minutes from Santa Monica Airport, its destination, when the pilot made a quick landing at 6:23 p.m. Although there wasn't a visible fire, the Los Angeles Fire Department met the jet on the runway. Upon landing, the governor disembarked and traveled home.

The Federal Aviation Administration announced that temporary flight restrictions on private pilots will be in effect in the Los Angeles area between early Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. The restrictions coincide with a visit to Los Angeles by President Obama. An FAA statement said only airlines, law enforcement aircraft and air ambulances will be allowed within a 12-mile radius of Santa Monica Airport between 1:15 p.m. Wednesday and 7:40 a.m. Thursday.

Los Angeles County coroner's officials worked Thursday to confirm the identities of two men killed in a plane crash at Santa Monica Airport, but friends of the two men identified them as the general manager of an aviation website and a world-traveling Internet business development consultant. Paulo Emanuele, believed to be 46, was the general manager of the airliners.net website. Martin Schaedel, believed to be about 23, was a consultant to FareCompare, an airline fare comparison website.

Two people were killed when their single-engine aerobatic plane crashed shortly after takeoff Wednesday from Santa Monica Airport and burst into flames. The red, two-seat Marchetti SF-260 airplane, registered to Malibu-based Wingspan Inc., crashed about 5 p.m. at the west end of the runway, police and airport officials said. The identities of the two victims were being withheld until family members could be notified. Witnesses said the plane was immediately in trouble.

These days, one of Michael Govan's private pleasures, flying a single-engine prop plane, gives him a useful perspective on the challenges of his public role: piloting the Los Angeles County Museum of Art during a time of economic turbulence. "I know head winds when I see them or feel them," he says. With the 1979 Beechcraft Bonanza he keeps at Santa Monica Airport, Govan has the option of waiting out bad weather. With LACMA, he has to keep airborne and on course no matter what: The museum is about midway through a multipronged, multimillion-dollar "Transformation."

They arrived for the memorial on a recent afternoon, filing in quietly under the steel trusses of a hangar, a motley crowd in suits, in flip-flops, in evening gowns, in pith helmets. Many were strangers to one another, their common thread a man named Griffith Lisle Hoerner. It felt, one said, like there was a hole in the sky.

Two men were critically injured Tuesday when their small plane plunged into the ocean about 50 yards off Malibu, just east of the Malibu Pier, Los Angeles County Fire Department officials said. The victims were pulled from the ocean after the crash occurred about 5:15 p.m. and airlifted to a nearby hospital, authorities said. The plane, registered to Northfield Aviation in Santa Monica, had taken off from Santa Monica Airport. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were investigating.