Father of two killed in Camarillo plane crash

BILL SPARKES/Acorn Newspapers FATAL CRASH- John McKittrick, 42, of Thousand Oaks was killed shortly after 8 a.m. Sunday when the the World War II-era P-51D Mustang airplane he was piloting solo for the first time crashed and flipped at the Camarillo Airport. Ventura County firefighters spray retardant foam under the aircraft after it was righted by a crane. John Mitchell McKittrick, a 42-year-old Thousand Oaks resident, was killed at around 8 a.m. Sun., July 15 when his WWII-era plane, a P-51D Mustang, crashed at the Camarillo Airport.

An autopsy is pending.

McKittrick was senior vice president of capital markets for Countrywide Home Loans and for the past two years had been an assistant football coach for freshmen and sophomores at Oaks Christian High School.

Witnesses said McKittrick was practicing takeoffs and landings in the single-engine airplane for about 20 minutes when it flipped and crashed off runway No. 26, according to Capt. Mark Taillon of the Ventura County Fire Department.

McKittrick, who had been practicing with a flight instructor, was performing his first solo landing in the aircraft when the crash occurred, Taillon said.

The instructor was standing near the runway during the accident, said Kellie Knauss, who works in the operations department at the airport. Knauss didn't fault McKittrick's experience.

"You don't get into a plane like that without having a lot of experience," she said.

Casey DeBree, a member of the Commemorative AirForce Southern California Wing in Camarillo, likened the powerful WWII fighter plane to a Formula One race car.

"It's easy to get into trouble if you're not very careful," DeBree said. "It's characteristic of these high-power aircrafts that you have to be very ginger in the way you apply the power at low speeds."

According to organizers of the Gathering of Mustangs and Legends Air Show, an Ohio-based show dedicated to P-51 Mustangs, only 150 of the planes are in flightworthy condition. DeBree said the vintage plane costs between $1 million to $1.5 million.

Georgia Strunsaker, a senior air safety investigator with National Transportation and Safety Board, said a preliminary report on the crash would not be ready until later this month. She said the NTSB is still collecting reports from witnesses and that it's too early to comment on what caused the accident.

Strunsaker said McKittrick did not radio the air traffic controllers directly before the crash to report any malfunction with the plane.

McKittrick and his wife, Michele, had been actively involved with Oaks Christian since the school was built in 2000.

"John enjoyed airplanes. He loved to fly," said Jan Hethcock, the high school's athletic director.

Hethcock said Michele McKittrick, a personal trainer, runs a physical education program for middle school students and is also the conditioning coach for a number of the high school's athletic teams.

McKittrick and his wife have two children who attend the private school in Westlake Village- a daughter in the eighth grade and a son who is a sophomore, Hethcock said.

"He was a great dad, an excellent husband, a great friend of the school. . . . He's really going to be missed. It's touching a lot of lives," Hethcock said.

The McKittrick Fitness Center, the school's weight and exercise room, is named after the family.

"They are just a tremendous family," Hethcock said. "They were very involved with our school before their kids were even in the school."

Sunday's crash was the third fatal aircraft accident in Pleasant Valley in a little more than a year.

In July 2006, two members of a Santa Barbara family were killed and two others injured when their single-engine plane crashed into a drainage ditch in a Somis lemon grove. And in September 2006 two Southern California Edison employees were killed when their helicopter clipped power lines at a rural ranch in Somis.

Funeral services for McKittrick are at 10 a.m. today at Calvary Community Church, 5495 Via Rocas in Westlake Village.