4 Pilots Died in Burbank Airport Crash

Four men killed in a fiery plane crash shortly after taking off from Burbank Airport were identified as a flight instructor and three other pilots who were on a training flight, authorities said Friday.

The four victims were flying from Burbank Airport to Santa Barbara when the plane crashed at 8:15 p.m. Thursday, said Gary Mucho, regional director of the National Transportation Safety Board.

Although the men have been tentatively identified, their names were not released Friday pending confirmation through dental records by the medical examiner’s office.

Mucho said the single-engine Piper Cherokee was leased to the Burbank-based Pilots Co-op flying club. At least three of the pilots were believed to be club members, he said.

Dan Tompkins, manager of the flying club, confirmed that the plane was one of six used by the club’s 100 members, but he declined to release the names of members who had logged out the craft for use Thursday night.

“These were men who had used that plane often,” Tompkins said. “It’s a very sad thing. The club is a close-knit group, and word has gotten around fast. People have been calling all day. It has just killed us all inside.”

The plane developed a problem almost immediately after takeoff, Mucho said. The pilot radioed the tower that he needed to land immediately. The plane attempted to return to the airport but crashed on nearby Lockheed Corp. property and burst into flames.

Elly Brekke, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the men on the plane had filed a flight plan with the Burbank tower and were under instrument flight rules, meaning that they were flying at the direction of air traffic controllers.

Tompkins said two of the pilots had been learning instrument flying from the instructor, and the group had apparently planned to fly to Santa Barbara and back Thursday night. He said the plane was carefully maintained by the club, and the men would have had to conduct a preflight safety check before taking off.

“It’s one of those things,” Tompkins said. “We do everything humanly possible to make flying as safe as possible.”

Mucho said the pilot did not say what the problem was, and investigators did not know if it was a mechanical problem or pilot error.

“There is nothing solid as far as a cause,” Mucho said. “We are looking at everything. The pilot said he had a problem, but he was never able to specify what his difficulty was.”

The plane came down at an estimated 45-degree angle and crashed into a chain-link fence on a Lockheed driveway next to the airport Lot A parking lot off Hollywood Way at Winona Avenue.

The craft broke apart on impact and burned, leaving little of it recognizable as an aircraft and leaving crash investigators with a difficult task in determining what caused the accident.

“We will try to put whatever is left back together and go from there,” Mucho said.

Investigators spent much of Friday at the crash scene examining and photographing the debris. NTSB Investigator Thomas H. Wilcox said it was unknown whether the instructor or one of the student pilots was flying the plane when it crashed.

Wilcox said the plane’s mechanism for controlling steering components was found intact and apparently did not play a part in the crash.

Times staff writer Philipp Gollner also contributed to this story.