Donald Bolt plane crash

BOLT

Posted By: Volunteer Paul French
Date: 5/13/2007 at 17:21:43

Planes Collide Over Venice, 2 Pilots Killed
By Ted Thackrey Jr.
Times Staff Writer

Two light airplanes collided in flight near Marina del Rey Thursday, killing both pilots, strewing wreckage over a mile-wide residential area and forcing evacuation of a police station.

Several bits of wreckage fell on a nearby schoolyard, but no injuries were reported there.

Police said the only injuries to those on the ground were indirect: five police officers treated for heat seizure, three for smoke inhalation and one hospitalized with a suspected heart attack.

One of the aircraft was identified as a twin-engine Turbo Commander owned and operated by the Hughes Aircraft Co. that was in a holding pattern above the company’s airstrip when the collision occurred.

Witnesses said its pilot, identified as Donald R. Bolt, 44, of Thousand Oaks, apparently retained at least partial control after impact with the other plane, a five-passenger, single-engine Beechcraft Debonair, and may have been attempting an emergency landing on Culver Blvd.

The pilot of the smaller aircraft was identified as Erich Baldwin, 27, of 408 Via La Soledad, Torrance, who authorities said appeared to be on a landing approach to nearby Santa Monica Municipal Airport.

Authorities said both men were alone in their planes.

The Turbo Commander, its rudder and elevator controls gone, crashed in the street in front of the Venice Division station of the Los Angeles Police Department at 12312 Culver Blvd.

Richard Ackerman, an officer from the Venice station, said, “I heard the crash (in the air) and looked up and there was a loud, whining noise.

“I saw the smaller plane explode and the twin-engine plane just kept coming on. It seemed to still be in one piece, and it was headed straight for the police station.

“If it hadn’t hit a telephone pole and those trees just in front of the station it would have gotten the station sure. It was just before the watch change and there were about 300 officers and others in the station. That was close…”

The station was ordered evacuated immediately after the crash, which occurred at 2:25 p.m., police said.

Officers attempted to set up a roadblock around the crash area, assisted by Culver City police. Seven prisoners held at the Venice Division were taken to the West Los Angeles Station for safety.

The smaller craft seemed to “explode” in the air after impact according to several witnesses.

“It just seemed to break up into little bitty pieces,” and officer Timothy Sanda, who saw the crash from the steps of the station. “It just broke up. . .”

The fuselage of the smaller craft and a part of one wing landed in the backyard of the Joseph Gutierrez home on Bonaparte Ave. – about three blocks from the other aircraft’s point of impact.

Gutierrez, 62, who works nights, was asleep.

“The crash woke me up,” he said. “I got up and looked out the window – and there was an airplane, burning, in the little guest house in back of the main house. . .”

His grandson, Albert Pesquiera, 16, who uses that guest house as his bedroom, was somewhat more shocked.

“That’s the room where I sleep!” he said. “And there was this plane in it. Burning! Like, I was going there – to my room – when it hit! Another minute and I could have been in there.”

Albert and several other persons turned garden hoses on the wreckage and the guest house and extinguished the flames.

Albert’s sister, Doreen Pesquiera, said she was walking home from Venice High School when she heard the impact in the air, saw parts of the smaller airplane coming down – and was horrified to see them falling toward her home.

“I ran the rest of the way,” she said. “I don’t know what I expected to find. I was just scared – but when I got home, everyone was safe.”

Police and fire authorities expressed amazement that no one on the ground had been killed.

Authorities said there were at least 250 separate “points of impact” where bits and pieces of the two craft fell to earth, and nine property owners reported extensive damage to their homes.

About 500 homes were without electricity from 45 minutes to 1 ½ hours due to damage to power lines and poles in the area, according to police.

Parts of the smaller airplane rained on the playground at the Marina Light and Life Christian School, 12606 Culver Blvd., where about 100 children were playing, according to principal Raymond Roller.

“Quite a few (of the children) were upset,” and said. “There must have been almost 100 on the playground when it came down. I think it was just the Lord watching over them. . .”

Police and firemen said they had great difficulty in restraining eager souvenir hunters who flocked to the area.

“They were carrying off everything from airplane parts to actual pieces of the bodies. You couldn’t believe it. They must have been out of their minds,” said one Culver City officer.

Federal investigators from the Transportation Safety Board rushed to the scene and attempted to confiscate all possible pieces of both aircraft. They said there is as yet no explanation of the collision and a full-scale investigation would be held.

Origin of the smaller airplane and identity of its pilot remained unknown according to police and federal authorities interviewed three hours after the crash.

Source: Los Angeles Times, Friday, October 22, 1976, clipping contained in “Family History” of the Barker, Sherod, and Forbes families and descendants compiled by Bernadine Forbes Clark, December 1980.