January 4, 2006 - Top Stories
On the morning of the last day of the year a small single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza 4-seater took off from Blackinton Airstrip, just off Lilac.
Shortly after taking off, at 8:14 a.m., the engine failed and the plane fell silently like a stone. It crashed in a tremendous fireball just next to the home of David Hagen in the 11000 block of Mystery Mountain Road, about a quarter mile from the airstrip. Hagen can see the strip from his house.
All three persons in the plane died instantly.
The plane was the fourth to leave the airstrip, part of a group on their way to a New Year’s Eve breakfast. The airpark is made up of residents who park their airplanes next to their houses the way others park their cars next to their houses.
The pilot, Lance Teren, 46, was an experienced pilot with hundreds of hours in the air. His passengers, Aniko Kish, 37 and her mother Fabri Nandorne, 55, were among the dead.
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David Hagen, 45, was working around his house that morning when the plane crashed right next to it. If he had stopped for a cigarette or hadn’t headed into the house for a cup of coffee, he could very easily have been the fourth victim of the crash.
Fortunately, also, his 6-year old daughter was not at home that day.
“I was just inside the house when the plane hit,” Hagen told The Roadrunner. “First there was a crash and then a couple of seconds I saw a massive fireball thirty to forty feet high when the fuel went up.”
Other witnesses reported hearing the engine popping before the plane came down from about 300-400 feet.
Dino DeLuca, who owns the Blackinton property, was the last to see the plane off. He described the accident:
“He took off from Blackinton and everything seemed to be OK through his preflight. When he was over Mr. Hagen’s vicinity that’s when he lost his engine. He tried to turn to the right, hoping to get back to the airport or maybe the freeway, but I observed that as soon as he got into the turn it went nose first into the ground.”
The force of the blast felt immense inside of the house, but, miraculously, it didn’t shatter windows on the Hagen house, or the nearby parked car, or any nearby power poles.
He didn’t have time to think. He ran for a water hose that had been laid out for a controlled burn, but it had been too close to the fire and was burned through.
At that moment, Mark Brashears, 15, saw what was happening from his house. He ran to Hagen’s property, which was a quite a ways distant and up a hill.
“We’re aren’t next door neighbors. He must have double-timed it all the way up here,” commented Hagen. “He didn’t hesitate. He knew what he was getting into.
Together they pulled out another fire hose and began dousing the spreading blaze.
“Between the two of us we were able to get water on the fire right away,” said Hagen.
Soon after DeLuca arrived, hoping not to find the ultimate sadness of seeing that his friend had perished.
“The experience of me knowing who it was as I was driving to the wreck and working with Mr. Hagen to put out the flames, knowing that my friend was a few few feet away, it was pretty hard,” said DeLuca. “You got to hope for the best as you get there, but as soon as I got there I saw that it was very sudden death.”
Engineer Dan Beeson of the VC Fire Dept. credited the man and youth with preventing the fire from spreading into the nearby grove. Some called them both heroes.
“I don’t feel much like a hero,” said Hagen. “I reacted to protect my own property. But Mark didn’t hesitate. If he had things would have been a lot worse.”
The Sheriff’s Communication Center received many 911 calls on the fire and VC fire department and sheriffs deputies responded, where they found Hagen and Brashears had put out 80% of the fire.
The Sheriff's Department Chaplain and TIPS volunteers were on scene to comfort the family members and those present at the crash.
The F.A.A. and members of the N.T.S.B. were on scene to conduct the investigation into the crash, and the investigation is ongoing. They will be examining the engine to determine what caused the failure.
Hagen says he can’t get over the number of small factors that went into the disaster not being worse than it was, at least for him personally.
“I’m very grateful to the pilot for his last efforts just before the crash. It would have been very much worse for us down on the ground if he hadn’t steered away from the house. “
The pilot, Teren, had lived at Blackinton airpark for several years.
Teren was a developer and a nationally recognized stunt pilot with thousands of hours of flying experience.
Reportedly his passengers were his girlfriend and her mother, from Eastern Europe, who had not seen each other for many years.
Hagen emphasized that he has no problem with being in the flight path of the airstrip.
“These are professional pilots, with outstanding credentials,” he said. “This is a catastrophic failure on a par with getting hit by lightning twice. They are a bunch of great guys. Excellent pilots, who strictly observe all of the safety guidelines. They run things very professionally.”
Sean Heath, another resident of the airpark, has lived there for 14 years. He is an airline pilot.
“Lance was my friend,” he told The Roadrunner. “He was a highly experienced pilot.”
Friends who gathered to remember Teren, said Heath, had a universal consensus: He was the model of generosity.
“He would give anybody the shirt off his back. There’s story after story about that, and his contagious laughter.”
According to Heath, Teren was an aerobatic champion who once took eighth place in the national aerobatic championships.
This year’s Roadrunner Newsmaker of the Year is head coach Rob Gilster, who this year led the Valley Center High School football team to win the CIF Division championship title for the second year in a row.
In 2004, the Jaguars went 10-0-2 and beat Brawley, 39-36, at Qualcomm Stadium for the first time since the school’s opening.
2005 looked different for Gilster’s team. A 17-game winning streak turned into a spotty 8-4 record. The Jaguars lost to Ramona, Escondido, Mission Hills and San Pasqual. They took third in the Valley League instead of first.
Player injuries were mounting. It seemed like another player was down and out every week. Linebackers and wide receivers alike were going down with ankle injuries and broken collarbones.
But the Jaguars hit their stride late in the season due to Gilster’s smart substitution and a flexible team. At the game opposite Orange Glen, the team made a turnaround. Players were healing, plays were coming together and the Jaguars managed to defeat the Patriots 34-17.
It defeated Coronado and La Jolla in the playoffs before heading into the finals.
The Jaguars peaked last month beating Santa Fe Christian, 33-13, at Qualcomm and taking the Division title again.
Gilster has lived 18 years in Valley Center and most of his life in the surrounding areas. He met his wife Robyn at Escondido High School and married her 25 years ago. Their marriage produced four children, 18-year-old Paul, 16-year-old Daniel, 12-year-old Lauren and Jared who is nine.
He began his coaching career 22 years ago and has seen the seasons change through football, basketball and track.
Gilster, who is the epitome of humility and graciousness, led the Western Days Parade this year as Grand Marshal. Asked then to comment on what has been a year of getting honors heaped on him, he said, “I love Valley Center. It’s paradise and I would love to live the rest of my life here. I’d love for my kids to be able to afford to raise their families here. It’s just that neat of a community,” said Gilster. “Its amazing how different it is. How nice it is.”
Part I
Every year is different. Every year is special. Every year is a piece of the mosaic of our lives.
Let’s take a look at some of 2005’s pieces:
JANUARY
Several area residents ignored raging floodwaters as seasonal creeks burst their banks and had to be rescued by firefighters. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
The Roadrunner named “fire relief angels” Terry & Mimi Van Koughnett, Michelle Schied, and Dianne Conaway as our first Newsmakers of the Year. Later Julie Stroh was honored as Citizen of the Year by the Valley Center Chamber of Commerce for her untiring work for VC students.
Mary Pfeifer was sworn in as the new Pauma Valley postmaster.
Longtime water district director of Operations Chuck Dacus retired, after 35 years of fixing and overseeing VC’s growing network of water pipes.
California Highway Patrol announced that it had received a grant to reduce the number of DUI’s locally.
FEBRUARY
Beloved Horizon Fellowship Pastor Dwayne Carter was felled by a stroke.
The fire district studied why response times had increased from six to nine minutes in the last three years.
Bates Nut Farm, in operation for 40 years, was threatened with becoming a non-conforming use as the County twiddled with commercial zoning out near Woods Valley Road. However, the County later claimed that Bates’s right to exist had ever been in danger.
Snappy’s a fixture at the corner of VC & Cole Grade Roads for several years, sold its last burger and closed for the last time.
Jay Enns, who was a goodwill ambassador from the non-profit Bell Gardens Farm and helped to develop it, died Feb. 1 at the age of 59.
For a few weeks rumors flew that there wouldn’t be any Western Days in 2005 because the seed money that the Chamber of Commerce normally gets from the County was not going to be there when it was needed. However, Fifth District Supervisor Bill Horn’s office announced that the Chamber would get the seed money after all.
The county Planning Commission began conducting hearings on the Valley Center Community Plan.
MARCH
It was nearly the wettest season since they began measuring such things in these parts, and certainly the wettest year in a century.
Bill Horn gave his State of North County speech in the Valley Center library.
The Parks & Rec district board announced that it wanted to give Adams Park back to the school district because it couldn’t afford to run it.
The County Health Dept. inspector became a real popular fella when he ordered the Optimists to stop selling Easter hams and turkeys because, he said, they were in violation of the safety regulations. The service club vowed to return.
The Valley Roadrunner
P.O.B. 1529, Valley Center, CA 92082
Tel. 760.749.1112 Fax 760.749.1688
Website: www.valleycenter.com
Email: editor@valleycenter.com
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