A pilot towing an aerial advertising banner behind a single-man aircraft crash landed on the beach below Trump National Golf Course just before noon on Friday.
“We got a call at about 12 o’clock this afternoon of a plane down,” said Stan Baillif, sergeant with LA County Sheriff’s Department Lomita Station.
The pilot, who was transferred to a local hospital with only minor injuries, told authorities his engine lost power. When he brought it down to land on the beach, he spotted a jogger and aimed toward the shore break, Baillif said.
“When the plane landed, that’s when it flipped over,” Baillif said.
The plane, which was a single-engine Piper PA-18 Super Cub, ended up landing about halfway between Trump National Golf Course and the Portuguese Bend Club. Crews spent the afternoon pulling the plane from the waves with a tractor before they had approval from the the Federal Aviation Administration to remove the wreckage. Both the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will be investigating the crash.
