Pilot Killed as Plane Hits Garage : Air traffic: It is the third fatal accident in five months involving aircraft from Santa Monica Airport. No one on the ground is injured.

A single-engine plane crashed near the Santa Monica Airport on Wednesday, killing the pilot and barely avoiding a home occupied by four people.

The crash was the third fatal accident involving a plane from that airport in five months. It occurred just west of the airfield at 11:23 a.m., shortly after the plane had taken off.

The pilot, Patrick Dean Brinnon, 36, of Northridge, was the lone occupant of the plane, which was headed for Van Nuys Airport. No one on the ground was injured.

According to witnesses, the plane--a Piper Saratoga PA 32 that seats six--apparently developed engine trouble and was trying to return to the airport when it stalled and crashed into the garage of the Sunset Park home, causing a fire that was quickly extinguished.

“I just knew the motor was (going) out, I’ve heard enough of them,” said Pat Wilson, who lives across the street in the 2300 block of Ashland Avenue and who saw the plane circle overhead before she ran inside. “It was ‘putt-putt-putt,’ then silence.”

Residents inside the home, a man, his son and the man’s parents, said they heard the sputtering of the plane’s engine overhead, then felt a series of shocks as the plane hit the ground.

“I went flying out the door,” said the man, who declined to be identified. “I thought it was another earthquake.”

Rescuers who arrived within minutes and helped douse the fire said Brinnon was dead when they reached the plane. However, the coroner’s office said the cause of death was still undetermined, pending further examination.

The Federal Aviation Agency and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating.

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The crash came a month after a four-seat, propeller-driven Piper carrying two passengers crashed into a vacant house just east of the airport on South Barrington Avenue, killing the pilot. And last November, all three passengers--including the son of film director Sydney Pollack--died after their single-engine Marchetti crashed into the basement carport of a Santa Monica apartment building.

Wednesday’s crash, which occurred in a quiet residential neighborhood just a few hundred yards from the end of a runway, may rekindle the concerns of residents who live close to Santa Monica Airport, one of the nation’s busiest single-runway airports. Last year, the airport handled more than 200,000 takeoffs and landings and officials predict traffic will increase about 5% a year in the foreseeable future.

“It’s really dangerous,” said Frieda Marlin, a Venice resident. “Cars have accidents, but this is coming from above. We’re not on the road, we’re in our homes.”

Airport officials, however, cite the facility’s safety record, which shows the airport averaging one crash per 200,000 takeoffs and landings, much lower than the general aviation rate of five per 100,000. Tim Walsh, the airport’s general manager, also said that the turbine engines of jets are generally much safer than the piston motors of light planes and that jet pilots are more experienced than pilots of light aircraft.

Wilson, who has lived in the neighborhood for 45 years, shrugs off concern of being injured by a plane. “You get used to them,” she said.

Even the resident whose home was hit insisted repeatedly that he and the other occupants “felt fine” and were “not shaken in the least” after the incident.

The man, who moved into the home with his family seven months ago, said: “What are the odds of this happening? A billion to one?”