3 Experimental Planes Crash in State; 5 People Die

The pilot of an experimental aircraft died Sunday when his small plane plunged into the ocean just outside the entrance to the Los Angeles-Long Beach Harbor, and four others were killed in crashes of experimental or homemade planes elsewhere in California, authorities said Sunday.

Mike Henderson, 40, of Long Beach died when his Long-EZ craft crashed Sunday afternoon after taking off from Hawthorne Municipal Airport, said a coroner’s investigator. County lifeguards saw the plane bank hard just before it crashed and found Henderson’s body near wreckage, said lifeguard Lt. Steve Wood.

A Nevada man and his son were stunt flying over Lake Tahoe in a homemade plane Sunday when the small craft nose-dived into four feet of water off the south shore, killing both of them, officials said. Their names were not released.

In Sonoma County, two men who had just finished assembling an ultra-light plane died Saturday evening when it crashed in the hills west of Cotati. They were identified as pilot Bradford William Beebe, 29, of Los Altos, and his passenger, Rick Dean Bello, 35, of Gualala.