It’s not clear who was flying the airplane that crashed in Corona on Wednesday, killing four people, but friends and relatives of the two licensed pilots who were aboard the Beechcraft Bonanza asserted Friday that both were excellent flyers.
Joseph Zingali, 85, of Torrance; Teresa Rodriguez, 63, of Whittier; husband Daniel Rodriguez, 70, of Whittier; and Paula Mitchell, 61, of La Mirada, were identified as the victims by the Riverside County Coroner’s Office late Thursday.
The National Transportation Safety Board had not yet announced Friday who was flying the plane when it crashed. The NTSB confirmed that the single-engine B36TC airplane belonged to Zingali, who is licensed as a commercial pilot with ratings for single- and multi-engine airplanes and instrument flying, according to Federal Aviation Administration records. Daniel Rodriguez has a private pilot license with ratings for single-engine airplanes and helicopters.
Witnesses said the plane briefly lifted off from Corona Municipal Airport about 12:10 p.m. in clear conditions but then fell back to the runway. The pilot then appeared to gun the engine for more speed, rather than aborting the takeoff. The plane didn’t get more than 3 feet off the ground before it struck a low fence, flipped and overturned into a ditch, where it caught fire and burned quickly.
“It wasn’t my father taking off,” Gerry Zingali, Joseph Zingali’s daughter, said in a telephone interview Friday. “My father was an expert flyer. My father would have aborted that.”
She struggled to talk about her dad. “My father was the greatest man I’ve ever known,” she said, sobbing.
Eddie Rodriguez described his brother Daniel Rodriguez as a safety-first pilot.
“There’s takeoff checklists he goes through every time,” Eddie Rodriguez said Friday. “He was a fanatic for safety. He would criticize other people who were not as safety-conscious as he was.”
Explanations for the crash could include being overweight, engine trouble and attempting to take off with a tailwind, all of which could limit a plane’s lift, said Walt Snyder, a veteran pilot who was at the airport Wednesday. The Corona Fire Department said the pilot had just added 80 gallons of fuel. Specifications for the plane say it can carry 102 gallons.
Eddie Rodriguez said the plane had taken off at Zamperini Field in Torrance and landed in Corona to refuel. The quartet was then going to fly around Southern California before returning to Torrance. Rodriguez said he initially was going to take part in the flight but had to cancel because of a meeting. Mitchell was invited to take his place.
Daniel Rodriguez served as a Los Angeles Police Department officer for 27 years, mostly in the Harbor and Southwest divisions.
“He cared about people’s safety and he was very strict in his thoughts and his life, morally,” said his brother, an LAPD officer for 29 years. “But he was a kind person. He went out of his way to help people in need.”
The brothers had lately become closer and would fly together, often heading from Compton/Woodley Airport to Corona Municipal, where they would fuel both the airplane and their stomachs at breakfast.
Teresa Rodriguez worked for the U.S. Postal Service for 30 years, finishing her career at the La Mirada post office.
“She had a beautiful personality, very nice, very cordial. Everybody who frequented the post office knew her,” Rodriguez said.
Teresa and Daniel married about nine years ago. “He took her to swap meets and took her flying, and he was adventurous in a mild way, and they hit it off,” he said. “She was beautiful, and he was handsome.”
Despite differences in their religions — she was Mormon and her husband was Catholic — they attended each other’s services.
Rodriguez said Mitchell worked even longer at the La Mirada post office — 41 years — than his sister-in-law.
“I knew her and she was a good friend of Teresa’s,” he said.
Rodriguez said he had never met Joseph Zingali.
A preliminary NTSB report on the crash will likely be published in the next several days. A report explaining the cause of the crash is not expected to be ready for at least a year.
