San Gabriel Valley Tribune
The plane, a fixed- wing four-seater, went down at 3:08 p.m. in a rugged and remote canyon area about three miles north of La Ca ada Flintridge, near the Oakwilde and Bear Canyon campgrounds, authorities said.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known. A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates aviation accidents, said an inquiry could take six to eight months to complete.
The coroner's office had not released the name of the pilot as of late Thursday. Federal Aviation Administration records show the 1977 aircraft was registered to John and Jeannie Rice of Las Vegas.
The steep terrain made getting to the crash site difficult for search and rescue teams. The sheriff's Emergency Services Detail and Montrose Search and Rescue hiked to the scene about 40 minutes after the crash. There, they found the plane smashed into about 10 pieces and the body of the pilot.
No one else is believed to have been aboard the plane, sheriff's Sgt. Randy Sulstrom said, but rescue workers scoured the area on foot and from the air just to make sure.
The pilot's body was eventually airlifted out of the canyon shortly before 6 p.m. and turned over to the county coroner for identification.
A U.S. Forest Service official said it was good fortune that the crash occurred after the recent rains, otherwise it could have sparked a forest fire.
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