Ojai Man, Daughter Die When Plane Crashes After Takeoff
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SANTA PAULA — An Ojai pilot and his 10-year-old daughter were killed early Sunday when their vintage small plane crashed and burned shortly after taking off from Santa Paula Airport.
John Forrest Lires, 44, took flight in his blue and yellow Cessna with his daughter, Erin, about 8:15 a.m. Minutes later, the plane had engine trouble and crashed near the airport, authorities and witnesses said.
“It took off from Santa Paula Airport, and about two minutes later it came down,” said Dale Zentzis, Ventura County senior deputy coroner. “They were killed on impact.”
The single-prop Cessna 195 plunged to the ground near the end of a narrow dirt road that runs along the north side of the Santa Clara River. Firefighters extinguished a small brush fire before discovering the bodies, said Sandi Wells of the Ventura County Fire Department.
It was the sixth fatal crash in four years near the Santa Paula Airport, which has no control tower.
Lires owned the plane--a model that was built about 40 years ago--with another Ojai man, John Dolan. Neighbor and friend Jody Kasch said Lires and Dolan had recently examined the craft thoroughly. “He was the most conscientious pilot,” Kasch said.
Erin, a straight-A student, was a child actress who had made appearances on such television shows as “Quantum Leap” and “Married With Children.”
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