Cause of plane crash is a mystery

Authorities rule out pilot medical problems as cause of crash Saturday off San Clemente. A Laguna Beach man is one of four victims.The pilot of a small plane that crashed off the San Clemente coast Saturday did not suffer a medical emergency before the plane went down, authorities said Wednesday.

The pilot and three passengers, including a Laguna Beach man, were killed.

Salvage crews late Tuesday recovered the bodies of pilot Dan Neuman and passengers Jason Baldwin, Jeff TenEyck and Rick Olavson.

An autopsy performed on the victims confirmed that they died from massive blunt force trauma sustained during the crash, said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

The pilot did not suffer a heart attack or any other medical emergency before the crash took place.

“Now it appears it [the cause of the crash] would either be mechanical or pilot error,” Amormino said.

Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation and Safety Board officials Wednesday searched the airplane for clues.

Tom Marquez, an FAA investigator, said the investigation into the cause of the crash was still in a preliminary stage. The FAA is gathering records related to the plane and those onboard, Marquez said.

The men were returning from an off-road race in Mexico when the plane plummeted into the ocean at 2:06 p.m. Saturday. No distress call was received from the aircraft, authorities said.

“We don’t know what happened,” Kelley Renezeder, Baldwin’s sister, said Sunday. “We fly in it [the plane] all the time.”

Baldwin, 36, was a Newport Beach real estate developer and an off-road racer. He lived with his family in Laguna’s Emerald Bay. He had invited TenEyck and Olavson to watch the Baja 1000 race, which Baldwin competed in Saturday.

Olavson was a developer based in Los Angeles. TenEyck, 35, who grew up in Laguna Beach, lived in Wyoming.

Baldwin and TenEyck were childhood friends, Renezeder said.

Neuman was the Baldwin family’s pilot and a part-time aviation instructor at Orange Coast College.

Former Laguna Beach Marine Safety Officer Matt Brown of Eugene, Ore., graduated from Laguna Beach High School with Baldwin and TenEyck. He heard about the plane crash from a friend.

“They were both really great guys,” Brown said Sunday. “He [Baldwin] loved the thrill, and that’s why he was racing [in the Baja 1000].”

Brown said TenEyck called to wish him a happy birthday just last week.

“We were all born really close together, so we all grew up together,” Brown said of a close group of friends that included Baldwin and TenEyck.

Crews used flotation devices and cables Tuesday to raise the plane, which was resting upside down on the ocean floor more than 200 feet below the surface and two miles offshore, Amormino said.

“The plane is virtually intact,” Amormino said.

The plane was lifted onto a barge and taken into Dana Point Harbor.

Witnesses reported seeing the plane spiraling downward, nose-first, into the water; the plane sank almost immediately and came to rest in 218 feet of water, officials said.

The single-engine, fixed-wing Cessna 210 took off from San Felipe, Mexico, and made a stop at San Diego’s Brown Field Municipal Airport.

It was bound for John Wayne Airport, U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Tony Migliorini said.

The plane is registered to a Newport Beach company, TR Builder Corp., owned by Jason Baldwin’s father, James Baldwin, according to FAA records.

Authorities did not know what caused the plane to crash. The pilot did not make a distress call, said Lt. Erin Giudice of the Orange County Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol.

A passenger on the Spirit of Dana Point, a boat owned by the Ocean Institute, called the Harbor Patrol at 2:06 p.m. after seeing the plane go down.

Using radar data, air traffic controllers determined that the plane was flying steadily, heading northwest at approximately 3,500 feet, when it suddenly went into a rapid descent, according to Nicole Charnon, an air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board.

The victims’ families boarded a private yacht early Tuesday and went to the scene of the wreckage, where they remained until the plane and the bodies of their loved ones were raised, Amormino said.

Tuesday afternoon, Dan Brun -- who knew Jason Baldwin -- waited onshore for news.

“They’re in shock,” Brun said of the victims’ families. He described Baldwin as “friendly and well-liked.”

Rescue efforts stalled Tuesday when two of the deep sea divers encountered problems trying to reach the plane. One diver was entangled in an anchor line and had to be brought up, Amormino said.

A second diver got within 60 feet of the plane when he was caught in a strong current and swept several hundred yards from the wreckage.

Divers returning from a deep sea dive must go into a hyperbaric chamber for two hours to acclimate their bodies to the pressure change.

Only one diver at a time was allowed to dive to the wreckage, and each diver could be submerged for a only 30-minute period, Amormino said.

DOUGLAS ZIMMERMAN / COASTLINE PILOTBoats gather Tuesday at the site of Saturday’s plane crash.20051125iqfdkzknDOUGLAS ZIMMERMAN / COASTLINE PILOT(LA)At the entrance to Dana Point Harbor on Tuesday, people watch as crews attempt to recover a small plane that on Saturday crashed several miles offshore, killing four. 20051125iqfdk5knDOUGLAS ZIMMERMAN / COASTLINE PILOT(LA)At the entrance to Dana Point Harbor on Tuesday, people watch as crews attempt to recover a small plane that on Saturday crashed several miles offshore, killing four.