Plane Owned by Local Company Lands on Big Bear Lake; Serious Injuries Avoided

Four people escaped serious injury when a small plane, apparently owned by an architectural firm in Encinitas, made a hard landing on Big Bear Lake, authorities said Sunday.

The Beech A36 Bonanza lost engine power and ditched in shallow water near the lake’s south shoreline about 10:40 a.m. Saturday, according to Allen Kenitzer, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. It came to a rest upside down, and sustained substantial damage, he said.

According to the FAA’s registry, the fixed-wing, single-engine plane was registered to Diehl Group Architects Inc. in Encinitas.

The crash was near Big Bear Airport at the mountain resort, about 120 miles north of San Diego.

Sheriff’s officials in San Bernardino County described the incident as “more of a hard landing” and said a couple of the plane’s passengers sustained minor injuries. Sheriff’s deputies and medical aid personnel responded to the scene.

Kenitzer said both the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were investigating the incident. Neither agency releases crash victims’ identities, he said.

Big Bear City Airport Unicom Operator Bob Dow said the plane’s pilot reported engine trouble and shaking shortly before the emergency landing, the San Bernardino County Sun reported.

Kenitzer said the NTSB investigator usually posts a preliminary report
on the agency’s website within a week or two, but it typically takes months to
come up with a probable cause for the incident.

-City News Service