Five killed in Catalina plane crash waited for battery to charge before taking off overnight, report says - The Mercury News

The five people died in a crash After a small plane took off from Catalina Airport in the dark in October, it had to wait more than an hour for the battery of one engine to charge before taking off, according to a report released Wednesday, Nov. 6, by the National Transportation Safety Board .

While the report does not provide a cause for the crash, it does provide details on why the pilot took more than an hour to depart after attempting to return a stranded pilot and two student pilots on Oct. 8.

Killed in the crash were the twin-engine plane’s owner, Ali Safai, 73, of West Hills; Haris Ali, 33, of Fullerton; Margaret Mary Fenner, 55, of Pennsylvania; Gonzalo Lubel, 34, residence unclear; and Joeun Park, 37, of North Hills.

The pilot, who has not been officially identified, attempted to take off from the airport in clear conditions that night around 8 p.m., the report said. Neither the airport nor the surrounding area southwest of the runway, the direction in which the pilot took off, has lights.

The airport is open daily from 8am to 5pm and allows landing and take-off before sunset, provided this has been agreed with the airport’s general manager, Carl True. Night operations are not permitted.

In this case the pilot was cleared to land and take offas long as the pilot did so before sunset, the report said.

A pilot and two student pilots from a Santa Monica Airport-based flight school, Proteus Aero, were stranded on the island after their plane had a mechanical problem, the report said. In a statement released earlier by Proteus Aero, the flight school said Safai was a friend and had offered his twin-engine Beechcraft 95, which he kept at the airport, to help the stranded people.

The plane took off from Santa Monica Airport just before 6 p.m. and landed at Catalina at 6:20 p.m., 11 minutes before sunset.

“The pilots shut down both engines, loaded the stranded pilots and attempted to restart (Beechcraft’s) engines,” the NTSB report says. “During the restart, the right engine would not start due to insufficient battery power. The occupants exited the aircraft and an extension cord was then connected to an on-board battery charger.”

They were told by the airport’s general manager that because the time required to charge the battery would last until after sunset, they would not be cleared to depart, but that the pilot, who was also identified in the report identified as the owner of the plane, which showed Safai was at the controls. , “informed the manager that he had to go and planned to leave anyway,” the report said.

The general manager said the departure would not be approved and would be at the pilot’s own risk, the report said.

By the time the plane took off, the airport manager was at his home and said he heard what sounded like a normal departure.

Security video at the airport captured the plane taking off from runway 22 around 8 p.m., but it was not possible to tell whether the plane was in the air before it reached the end of the runway, the report said. Flight data shows the plane may have been airborne before the runway ended, but then descended after takeoff, followed by a right turn, until it crashed half a mile from the runway.

The plane struck the ridge with its wings in a horizontal position and its landing gear extended, the report said.

Pilots with experience flying to Catalina said the pilot could have been disoriented in the darknesswith some also pointing to a possible weight problem on board.

Safai owned Santa Monica Aviation, another flight school at the Santa Monica Airport, until it closed in 2018.