Plane Hits Power Lines : Huntington Beach Pilot Walks Away From Crash

A small plane piloted by a Huntington Beach man swooped into power lines in a Canoga Park neighborhood Tuesday and flipped over, crashing upside down in an alley.

The pilot, who said he was trying to avoid children playing in a schoolyard, was able to walk away from the crash, apparently without injury.

Richard E. Cabrinha, 51, said he had taken off from the Camarillo Airport and was heading for Meadowlark Airport in Orange County. He was passing over the Simi Hills when the oil pressure suddenly dropped, the engine began to vibrate severely and “there was smoke all around the cockpit.”

Powerless Landing

The engine of the Piper Comanche 250 stopped and he prepared for a powerless landing, Cabrinha said.

“All I could think about was not hitting anybody.”

At one point, as the plane glided toward western Canoga Park, he sighted a field, then realized that it appeared to be next to a school and that children were playing in it, he said. He swung away, hoping to set the plane down on Vanowen Street.

There are three schools within a mile of the crash scene.

Cabrinha said he lost altitude too quickly to make Vanowen, so he pointed the plane toward an alley. “I put my wheels down and went for the alley,” he said, but the undercarriage snagged on utility poles, causing the plane to somersault and crash in the alley at 4:40 p.m.

A Department of Water and Power spokesman said the landing gear apparently struck two power poles, shearing off the tops and causing a power blackout for about two blocks around the scene.

The plane’s wingspan was wider than the 20-foot width of the alley and it came to rest diagonally, one wing atop a backyard fence. Cabrinha said he turned off the electrical switches to reduce the chance of a fire and crawled from the cockpit, which was crumpled against the pavement.

‘Just Walked Out’

Cabrinha “just walked out the door,” said Bob Johnson, who was working on a motorcycle in the alley with a friend when the aircraft crashed about two houses short of them.

“He just walked by us. He didn’t talk to us or anything. He was more worried about his briefcase than anything.”

Cabrinha was taken for observation to Humana Hospital West Hills in Canoga Park, where he told administrators he was not injured. He was released.

Cabrinha said that, despite the accident, he would continue to fly. He said he works on the technical staff of DEL Manufacturing Co., an Oxnard firm that manufactures rockets and bombs, and flies to the Oxnard area about once a week.