The two men fatally injured when a light plane owned by an aviation school crashed into a driveway in a Santee neighborhood adjacent to Gillespie Field were identified Friday as a training pilot and his student.
Rancho Penasquitos resident Robert C. Sarrisin, 59, was teaching 50-year- old Jeffrey Michael Johnson of El Cajon to fly the aircraft, which is owned by the company that operates Golden State Flying Club in El Cajon, when it stalled or had engine problems and crash-landed on Corte De La Donna near Paseo de los Castillos about 9:15 a.m. Thursday, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office.
The Piper Cherokee went down about five minutes after taking off from Gillespie Field for a one-hour touch and go flight. It clipped the red-tile roof of one home before crashing in the driveway of a house next door, the Federal Aviation Administration reported.
A witness told CBS News 8 the single- engine plane hit two parked vehicles, flipped over and caught fire. Sarrisin died inside the crumpled wreckage of the four-seat plane, authorities said. It took emergency crews almost a half-hour to free Johnson. Paramedics took him to Sharp Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about an hour after the crash.
The plane is owned by Volar Corp., which operates the El Cajon-based flying club, according to FAA records.
