RSS Feed
|
|||||
|
Fatal crash one of three incidents this week at airport
It was one of three incidents involving airplanes at the airport in as many days. An official with the Ventura County medical examiner's office confirmed that Marc Fiorini, 53, died of multiple blunt force injuries he sustained when his fixed-wing Piper PA-18A crashed on the east end of the airport around 9:30 a.m. on Aug. 31. The crash happened moments after Fiorini hooked the advertising banner to his plane. Pete Mason, a Santa Paula pilot who has been flying advertising banners since 1984, said it's possible that Fiorini snagged the banner with his front landing wheels instead of the grappling hook that drags from the back of the plane. Mason said if Fiorini had caught the banner in his landing wheels, it may have affected the way the plane flew and caused it to crash. Mason said, however, that banners weigh less than 20 pounds and don't typically cause a plane to crash. He said a plane crash is usually caused by a series of events as opposed to a single reason. Bill Nash, a spokesperson for the Ventura County Fire Department, said the plane was ascending after it had snagged the advertising banner and was less than 1,000 feet in the air when it crashed. County firefighters from Fire Station 50 and other rescue personnel responded to the accident scene. No other injuries were reported, Nash said. According to Nash, Fiorini had connections with residences in both Florida and Arizona. The plane was owned by Van Wagner Aerial Media. It was the second incident in less than a month in Camarillo involving an airplane owned by the Floridabased company. On July 10, the pilot of a single-engine plane walked away uninjured from an emergency landing he made in an empty field in the industrial area of Camarillo. Matheus Broglio, 28, was the only one on board the fixed-wing Piper PA-18A that was forced to make an emergency landing that left the plane upside down in a vacant lot near Camino Ruiz and Camino Carrillo on the east end of Camarillo. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating both crashes. Representatives from Van Wagner Aerial Media were unavailable for comment. "I'm sure the company is reviewing their safety practices," Nash said. "We have to say that we are concerned that we've had two separate crashes in a month." Mason, a longtime pilot, said it was simply bad luck that the two planes crashed within such a short period of time. "It's a proven airplane," Mason said of the Piper plane used by Van Wagner. Second incident Around 4 p.m. on Sunday, an ultralight plane made an emergency landing in a field near Pleasant Valley and Wood roads, Nash said. No one was reported injured. Third incident Two people walked away from a plane crash Tuesday evening after their single-engine experimental aircraft lost power soon after takeoff from the Camarillo Airport. The names of the pilot and passenger were not available at press time. Nash said the pilot tried to return to the airport around 5 p.m. but was unable to make the runway. The plane touched down in soft dirt, which caught the plane's wheel, flipping the plane onto its roof. No one was injured, Nash said. The plane came to rest in a field west of Las Posas Road and east of the runway, not far from Fire Station 50. "On the plus side, we got there fast," Nash said. "We're just glad that this turned out to be no injuries and everybody walked away from it." A fuel spill as a result of the crash was cleaned up, Nash said. |
for larger version       |
||||
)