Pilot Badly Injured as Light Plane Hits Garage : Aviation: Home-built craft loses power trying to land at Santa Monica Airport. Accident is fourth there in past 1 1/2 years.

A home-built, single-engine plane apparently lost power as it approached Santa Monica Municipal Airport on Sunday, smashing into a family garage and critically injuring the 62-year-old pilot.

The aircraft, called a “pusher plane” because of its rear propeller, barely missed a house when it crashed in the 13000 block of Warren Avenue in Mar Vista.

Neighbors heard the boom of impact and the crackle of a blown transformer as the experimental aircraft, known as a Long-EZ, sheared a power line and crashed belly-up into the garage shortly before 1 p.m.

“It was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Steve Dahl, 36, who lives across the street. “At first, I thought it was a dump truck loading garbage. . . . Then I thought it was thunder. Then I ran outside and saw the plane, and I knew what it was.”

Los Angeles city firefighters, using the Jaws of Life device, needed about 15 minutes to extricate the pilot, William Davenport of Los Angeles.

Davenport was in critical condition at UCLA Medical Center, hospital officials said. Although he was conscious, he had severe head injuries, and splinters from the garage were embedded in his neck, Battalion Chief Tom Stires said.

Residents of the house next to the crash site were apparently on vacation and could not be reached, Stires said.

The crash, which ripped branches off trees and snapped power lines from poles, was the fourth serious accident involving a plane from Santa Monica Airport in the past year and a half. One of the nation’s busiest single-runway airports, the Santa Monica field handles more than 200,000 takeoffs and landings each year.

An airport spokesman would not comment Sunday on the crash.

As a half-dozen firefighters sifted through the wreckage, Santa Monica’s heavy air traffic continued. Single-passenger and commercial planes zoomed overhead every few minutes.

Accustomed to the constant air traffic, neighbors and passers-by said they accepted Sunday’s accident as all but inevitable. Few expressed anger over the airport’s busy runway.

“It’s like (complaining) that there are a lot of crashes on the 10 Freeway,” shrugged Peter Flax, 47, who was visiting his mother when the plane plummeted a few blocks from her house. “Stuff happens.”

Drawn to the crash with his wife, Sandra, nearby resident John Schieldge calmly pointed out past accident sites: Here a small craft had sheared the cab off a pickup truck; there a fighter plane had landed on top of a house.

Schieldge was unfazed by the sight of a light blue-and-white wing dangling forlornly from a power line a few yards from the rubble-strewn crash site.

“There’s a lot of traffic in and out, so you can expect a certain number of crashes,” he said. “I don’t know what you can do.”

Witnesses at the airport said the Long-EZ plane seemed to lose power in its single, rear engine as it descended toward the airport’s lone runway. The balky engine apparently kicked back into gear too late for the pilot to land. So he tried to circle around for another approach--only to lose power and plunge below the tree line.

“The engine was going in spurts,” said Victor Mulzac of El Segundo, who was tracking planes at the airport. “As he was trying to turn southward, he was obviously losing altitude. I said, ‘It doesn’t look like the poor guy’s going to make it.’ ”

Federal safety agencies will investigate the crash.

“We don’t know what happened,” fire spokesman Stires said. “We just know the consequences.”

Those included a small fuel slick, a sprinkling of debris and the destruction of the plane and the garage. Fire officials said there were no cars in the garage at the time of the crash. But its door jutted out at a skewed angle, and its walls lay crumpled under the plane.

Despite the view from his front window across the street, Charles Low, 26, said he feels safe living near the Santa Monica Airport. “What’s the chance,” he asked, “that another plane is going to crash in the exact same vicinity?”

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Airport’s Troubled History Some recent crashes involving planes approaching or taking off from Santa Monica Municipal Airport:

* April 20, 1994: Single-engine Piper Saratoga 32A crashes after running out of gas shortly after takeoff. Pilot dies on impact when plane hits the garage of a Sunset Park home.

* March 11, 1994: Single-engine Piper Cherokee slams into unoccupied house shortly after takeoff. Investigators blame a loose engine cowling. Crash kills passenger.

* Nov. 26, 1993: Single-engine Marchetti M 260 crashes into the carport of a Santa Monica apartment complex shortly after takeoff, killing two men.

* Jan. 18, 1992: Single-engine Mooney Ranger hits utility pole and explodes just short of the runway, killing pilot and passenger.

* Feb. 24, 1991: Single-engine Piper Malibu clips a house and street lamp on South Sherbourne Drive while attempting an emergency landing near the airport. No injuries reported.

* Feb. 26, 1990: Home-built Long-EZ crashes into the ocean in heavy fog about half an hour after takeoff, killing pilot William Wallace Reid, 72.

* Oct. 26, 1989: Experimental plane slams into two houses on Greenfield Avenue, causing fire but no injuries.

* May 17, 1987: Single-engine Cessna 182 smashes into three cars while trying to land on West Rose Avenue in Mar Vista after losing power shortly after takeoff. Crash injures two people.