Plane Strikes House’s Roof, Crashes in Field

Two men suffered lacerations and broken bones when their single-propeller Cessna clipped a house and crashed into a lima bean field Friday afternoon as they attempted an emergency landing at the Oxnard Airport.

A third man suffered minor injuries.

“We were talking in the living room and playing Nintendo, then we heard this big boom and the house shook like a big earthquake,” said Julie Plascencia, 14, who was in the two-story beige home. “I was too scared to think about what it was.”

The plane, on an instructional flight out of Camarillo Airport, apparently suffered engine failure before it sheared off the top of a chimney and some red roof tiles on the house on Ivanhoe Avenue about 2:30 p.m.

The Cessna 210 then slammed into a cement light pole across the street on Doris Avenue, ripping off a wing and crashing into the bean field just steps away from farm workers. The wing left behind in the street burst into flames and unleashed a black column of smoke.

Shirley Clark was watering plants in her backyard on Nottingham Drive when she spotted the plane gliding suspiciously quiet--just above rooftop level.

“I did not hear a motor but the prop was turning,” Clark said.

Then she saw fear on the pilot’s face.

“The expression on the man was frightening,” she said. “Obviously he had lost power. I give the man credit for trying to get the plane into an open field.”

By the time Oxnard firefighters arrived, one of the men was standing next to the wreckage, said Fire Department Battalion Chief Terry McAnally. The man seemed to have escaped serious injury.

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Two other men were trapped beneath the plane. One was lying under the wing, and firefighters were able to pull him out. The other was pinned under the left side, paramedics and firefighters said. Both suffered broken ankles and serious lacerations.

All three were taken to St. John’s Regional Medical Center.

“Everybody is conscious. Everybody is talking,” said Lynn Borman, a paramedic supervisor with Gold Coast Ambulance Company.

Hospital officials identified the men as 34-year-old Michael Macias, a certified flight instructor with Sun-Air Aviation Inc. in Camarillo, and Beat Leu, 33, and Markus Vogel, 41, both of Switzerland. All three were listed in fair condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.

“It was a clear day. It’s hard to say what happened,” McAnally said. “There was no report of any landing gear down. They hit the roof, the pole and then tore off the wing. They’re lucky they got away from it . . . if lucky is the word.”

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Tad Dougherty, manager of the Oxnard Airport, said the pilot tried at the last minute to avoid the homes.

“He probably saved somebody,” Dougherty said. “An experienced pilot will do everything he can to land the plane in a vacant field. He doesn’t want to hit the house because he will injure himself as well as anybody in the house.”

Residents in the nearby housing tract said that although they live near the Oxnard Airport they had never feared crashes before.

“When we first came to look at the house we questioned the developer here about the planes,” said Gail Johnson, who lives across the street from the home clipped by the plane. “We were told we were not in a flight path.”

Crash investigators with the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board arrived about two hours after the accident to scrutinize the wreckage.

Investigators said it would be at least a day before they could determine a cause for the accident, said Brian Ashton, an FAA official at the scene.

Air traffic controllers at Point Mugu Naval Air Station reported receiving a distress call from the pilot about 2:30. The Cessna had lost power and was at an altitude of about 1,300 feet and falling, said Phyllis Thrower, a Navy spokeswoman.

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The plane was bound for Burbank but developed trouble about two miles from the Oxnard Airport, Thrower said.

A representative at Sun-Air declined comment.

An instructor at another flight school at the Camarillo Airport said Sun-Air operates a Cessna 210 with the matching tail number.

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Hadly is a staff writer and Hobbs is a correspondent. Times staff writer Hilary MacGregor and correspondents Nick Green and David Greenberg contributed to this story.