NTSB says pilot's door was open when small plane crashed into Fullerton warehouse killing 2 and injuring 19
Federal investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board provided further details on the small plane that crashed into a Fullerton warehouse in early-January, killing a father and daughter and injuring 19 others.
The crash, which happened on Jan. 2 in the 2300 block of Raymer Avenue, killed Pascal Reid and his 16-year-old daughter Kelly, who were aboard the plane. It also injured nineteen others inside of the furniture warehouse where it crashed after a fire sparked.
Investigators say that prior to the flight, an acquaintance of Reid's saw him taxiing from the pilot's hangar at Fullerton Airport to the runway before takeoff, according to a statement released by the NTSB on Friday.
Video from that area shows that the left door of the plane was in the down position, but was "not flush with the fuselage," the NTSB statement said.
Shortly after taking off, Reid contacted air traffic control and said "immediate landing required," to which he was told to try and land on any runway at the airport.
"Once the airplane had departed the runway environment ... he realized its left door was open and up," the NTSB said, reporting on a witness statement. "He saw an arm reach up and pull the door down. By this time the airplane was far enough away that he could no longer discern what was happening, and he assumed the pilot was able to rectify the situation."
Other witnesses, all pilots at the airport, said that the plane was "flying lower than normal and banking aggressively left as it made the transition from downwind to base," NTSB investigators said. "Three then saw the airplane roll aggressively again to the left for what they assumed was a turn to final, all stating that they could almost see the full wing profile, and were concerned it may stall. The airplane then rolled right as its nose dropped, and dove toward the warehouse, where it collided in a fireball."
NTSB officials found that the parts for the Vans Aircraft RV-10 were shipped to Reid between 2007 and 2008, and that it was assembled in 2011.
In Jan. 2020, a "retrofit kit" for the door assembly that was recommended to be installed on the planes was also sent to Reid, the NTSB said.
Upon inspection of the airplane wreckage, investigators found that Reid had made a number of modifications to the standard door-locking system. Those changes included "the use of solid steel locking pins rather than the kit-supplied aluminum pins, along with the replacement of the UHMW polythene door blocks with chamfered aluminum blocks."
"Additionally, the secondary safety latch had not been installed, and the door latch indicator system had been modified," NTSB officials said.
The plane's LED warning lamps were designed to alert the pilot if a door wasn't fully shut, but they found that on Reid's plane it "appeared that only two reed switches had been installed, with each mounted to the aft pillars of both doors. As such, the modified system would not have warned the pilot if the forward latch pins had failed to fully engage.
Witnesses told investigators that just before the plane made impact, they saw a white object fall from the plane.
"They described the piece as panel-like, and that it 'floated' or 'fluttered' to the ground," NTSB's investigation report said.