2 Aboard Hand-Built Plane Die in Fiery Crash : Santa Paula: The craft strikes pavement and skids into a golf cart. A witness watches helplessly as the pilot tries to escape the cockpit.

The pilot and passenger of a hand-built airplane burned to death Wednesday after crashing into a golf cart shortly after takeoff from Santa Paula Airport.

Thomas Grist Sr., 51, a commercial pilot from Las Vegas, Nev., and passenger David Knight, 45, of Stockton were trapped inside the cockpit and could not escape the flames that engulfed the two-seat, single-engine craft, witnesses said.

The 11:24 a.m. crash was the second fatal accident in two months at the small, privately owned airport off California 126. A Ventura County stunt pilot and his flight student were killed Feb. 13 when a helicopter carrying actor Kirk Douglas and two other people collided with their plane 40 feet above the runway.

Investigators and witnesses said the aluminum plane, built from a kit manufactured in Oregon, was 20 to 40 feet above the runway after takeoff when its engine apparently died.

The plane veered over a series of hangars before striking the pavement, skidding 30 feet into the motorized golf cart and sliding another 50 feet on its belly, witnesses said.

James Burtlow, the golf cart’s driver, saw the plane descend and leaped for cover in a nearby hangar moments before it hit the cart, which also erupted in flames, Santa Paula police said. The carts are a popular means of transportation for airport employees.

John Brooks, one of the first people at the scene, said he watched helplessly as Grist tried for 40 seconds to free himself as the cockpit was consumed by fire. Brooks, who owns a nearby airplane repair shop, said he attempted to rescue the pair but was repelled by the heat.

“He kept looking down grabbing for the seat belt,” said a distraught Brooks, who was burned severely in a car fire several years ago. “There wasn’t anything I could do. You can’t just go jumping into a ball of flame.”

Grist, a Hawaiian Airlines captain who had flown between the West Coast and Hawaii since 1972, was unable to maneuver the plane’s nose down for a safe landing, authorities said. He also was a certified flight instructor who regularly flew out of Santa Paula and conducted flight tests twice a year for local pilots seeking license renewals.

“In a normal situation, we’re trained to fly straight ahead, pull the nose down, and maintain flight speed,” said Bruce Dickenson, a member of the Santa Paula Airport Assn. board of directors. “Unfortunately, this pilot seems to have chosen the wrong course of action.”

“It makes any pilot think: ‘What would I have done? Am I sharp on procedures like that?”’ said pilot Jim McHenry of Ojai.

Members of the close-knit airport community said they were just getting over the crash two months ago that killed popular stunt pilot Lee Manelski and student David Tomlinson when the second fatal accident occurred.

“It is like a family here,” said flight instructor Aaron Rogers. “When something like this happens, your security is violated.”

Authorities said the plane that Grist was flying belonged to Task Research, a company based at the airport that builds planes and props for theme parks and movie sets. Knight was a nephew of the company’s owner, said Phil Oiler, a hangar owner and airport shareholder.

Though constructed by hand, the RV-4 is sturdier than conventional single-prop airplanes, pilots said. Kits containing materials for a fuselage, wings and landing gear cost $6,000 to $7,000. The owners must buy separate engines, instruments and radios.

Grist was building an RV-3, a single-seat version of the same plane, said Bret Ebaugh, a fellow flight instructor.

Don Llorente, supervisory air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, said a preliminary review indicated that the plane’s engine was not running at the moment of impact. The engine will be disassembled to pinpoint any mechanical problem, said Llorente, who did not rule out pilot error.

Airport officials said the airfield’s “uncontrolled” status--where pilots radio landing and takeoff plans to each other rather than to a control tower--had no bearing on the recent accidents.

“This is not an outlaw airport in any sense,” Oiler said. “We follow all the rules and regulations.”

Santa Paula police, meanwhile, are still weighing possible involuntary manslaughter charges against the helicopter pilot in the crash that killed Manelski and Tomlinson, Detective Sgt. Gary Marshall said.

Marshall said a joint investigation with the Federal Aviation Administration has not determined whether Noel Blanc, son of cartoon voice Mel Blanc, or Michael Carra, a Beverly Hills police officer, was piloting the helicopter that took off from a helipad into the path of Manelski’s plane. Blanc, Carra and Douglas were injured in the crash but have recovered.

“We’re investigating the possibility of gross negligence and whether the pilots involved exercised due caution,” Marshall said.

Times staff writer Vivian Louie contributed to this story.