Veteran Pilot Killed After Plane Spins Out of Control at Santa Paula Air Show

SANTA PAULA — A former U.S. Navy fighter pilot was killed Saturday afternoon when his stunt plane spiraled out of control and crashed into the Santa Clara River during an air show at nearby Santa Paula Airport.

Rick Fessenden, a well-known and experienced aerobatic pilot, was completing an aerial performance when he failed to pull his Berkut fiberglass plane out of a series of tight spins, witnesses said.

“He made it three-quarters of the way through the turn,” said Don Foster Gutridge, who was watching the stunt. “The left wing jerked suddenly and it looked like a high-speed stall.”

The plane continued to spin, he said, spiraling downward behind a line of trees and out of view of onlookers. No one in the stands saw the crash, but witnesses heard “a thud,” Foster Gutridge said.

Air show enthusiasts were stunned by the crash because Fessenden was a skilled pilot, they said. “This guy was one of the world’s best pilots,” said Wayman Dunlap, editor of a monthly aviation magazine and a longtime friend of Fessenden.

“The only thing I can think of, and I am guessing, is that some mechanical malfunction occurred that was too quick for him to respond to,” he said.