The pilot of a small home-built aircraft that struck a woman as he made an emergency landing last month told federal investigators the plane lost fuel pressure, then stalled, forcing him to attempt to land in a Long Beach park, according to a report released Wednesday.
The plane, a two-seater Rutan Long-EZ, crashed around 4 p.m. Oct. 21 at Heartwell Park. The fuselage of the plane was damaged but remained largely intact. The plane struck a woman walking in the park as it came in for a landing.
According to a preliminary investigative report from the National Transportation Safety Board, both the woman and the pilot were seriously injured.
The pilot was not identified in the report, but the plane’s tail number indicates it is owned by a retiree who lives in Rancho Palos Verdes.
According to the report, two planes flew that day from the Compton Airport to French Valley Airport in Murrieta in Riverside County. At about 3:30 p.m. that day, both pilots were flying back to Compton.
The pilot of the Rutan told NTSB investigators that the initial portion of the return flight was uneventful, but he later realized the fuel flow was dropping, although the plane’s engine was continuing to run smoothly.
The pilot continued flying toward Compton, but at one point the plane’s engine “throttled back,” and despite efforts by the pilot to restore the fuel pressure, “the engine surged and decreased to idle, followed by a total loss of engine power,” according to the report.
Investigators said the pilot tried to divert to Long Beach Airport, but the plane was gliding and descending at about 700 feet per minute. The pilot realized he was not going to reach Long Beach Airport, so he “initiated a forced landing to a nearby park.”
“He stated that as he approached the park, he did not see anyone in the flight path of the airplane,” according to the report. “During the forced landing to the park, the airplane struck a pedestrian. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and both wings.”
The report, which is only preliminary, does not reach any official conclusions on the cause of the engine failure or the emergency landing. A final report could take months, or even more than a year, to complete.