Airplane crash in Simi Valley puts spotlight on the safety of popular kit-built aircraft
- Share via
Residents in Simi Valley thought the small aircraft circling over the neighborhood on Saturday was part of an air show.
The plane appeared to fly erratically, drawing closer and closer to the ground. Then there was the loud boom as the kit-built plane clipped a home on High Meadow Street in the Wood Ranch neighborhood. Two passengers and a dog aboard the plane died at the scene, according to authorities.
The fatal crash, the second in five months involving that model aircraft, puts a spotlight on such experimental and amateur kit-built aircraft, their rate of accidents and the overall process to win regulatory approval to fly the planes with passengers aboard.
There are roughly 30,000 amateur-built planes currently certified in the U.S., according to experimental aircraft enthusiasts. The total number of registered airworthy aircraft has tripled since the 1980s, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Nailing down an exact number of such planes in use is a moving target as the database for keeping track of new registered planes and older planes falling out of use is not always up to date.
Kit planes are increasingly popular because they are much less expensive than factory-built aircraft, according to enthusiasts, and give the community a sense of customizing their own route to the skies.
The FAA said the single-engine Vans RV-10, a fixed-wing airplane, departed from Lancaster en route to Camarillo on Saturday.
The FAA’s website shows the plane was registered to Paul Berkovitz of Westlake Village.
Medical examiners haven’t released the names of the two individuals who died in the crash. Berkovitz is listed as the former owner of Camp Bow Wow Agoura Hills and Bow Wow Bungalow in Burbank.
He shared on social media that he is passionate about supporting animals in overcrowded shelters and would fly dogs from shelters to new homes for a nonprofit called Pilot N Paws.
“It is the most gratifying flying you’ll ever do as a pilot,” he told Pet Vet Sales, a pet business broker and consulting firm. The firm also noted that Berkovitz enjoyed flying his amateur built RV-10 plane, the same type that crashed in Simi Valley.
The door to a pilot’s plane appeared to be ajar as it took off from Fullerton Airport, moments before it crashed into a warehouse, according to investigators.
Shortly before the crash, the control tower at Camarillo Airport tried to contact the pilot. He didn’t immediately respond and when he did speak his words were garbled.
Finally, his voice came in clear as he said, “I need some vectors. The plane keeps turning on me.”
The air traffic controller repeatedly asked the pilot to provide his altitude, according to audio posted to LiveATC, but there was no clear response.
“You are radar contact lost,” the traffic controller said, meaning the tower was no longer receiving the surveillance data used to determine the aircraft’s position.
Authorities have not released the identities of the pilot or his passenger.
The official cause of the crash is under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency tasked with investigating airplane accidents and crashes. A preliminary report will be issued in the next 30 days and a final report will likely be released in the next one to two years, according to an agency spokesperson.
While there remain many unknowns about the crash, officials have confirmed the plane was an experimental or amateur kit-built aircraft. About 1,000 kit-built planes are deemed air worthy every year by the FAA, according to a spokesperson from the Experimental Aircraft Association, an international organization of aviation enthusiasts.
In the period from October to May, there were fewer fatal accidents involving experimental category and amateur-buit aircraft than in the same period last year, 12 versus 18, according to available data from the FAA.
The Vans RV-10 that crashed into Simi Valley on Saturday is the same model of plane that crashed into a warehouse in Fullerton on Jan. 2, killing the pilot, his 16-year-old daughter and injuring 19 people on the ground. The company that sells the kit plane, Van’s Aircraft, is based in Aurora, Ore.
The helicopter repair service billed customers after installing old parts, according to a grand jury indictment.
Prior to the January crash, the experimental category saw a decrease of about 25% in fatal accidents compared to a decade ago, according to the Experimental Aircraft Association. From 2005-2014, there were 527 fatal accidents in the home-built category versus 329 from 2015-2024, according to available data.
According to the FAA, an amateur-built aircraft meets the definition if more than 51% of the plane is fabricated and assembled by an individual or a group for educational or recreational purposes.
Some enthusiasts choose to purchase kits with plane parts already fabricated and others opt to purchase or manufacture their own parts and assemble them.
Often times, these home-built planes are assembled in home garages for anywhere between $10,000 to $100,000 depending on the types of aircraft a hobbyist wants to fly, according to the Experimental Aircraft Association.
An FAA inspector or certified inspector will then meticulously go through the builder’s log of when the parts were assembled and how long it took. The builder will need to compile photos and a timeline showing how the plane was put together.
Afterwards, a pilot must complete between 25 and 40 hours of test flights over unpopulated areas to make sure that all the parts work properly, according to Experimental Aircraft Association guidelines. Only after that phase is complete can a pilot bring along passengers.
The Vans RV-10 is one of the most commonly used and sophisticated kits available on the market, EAA vice president Sean Elliott said earlier this year following the January crash.
“They make up the bulk of the recreational fleet of amateur-built aircraft and they provide a lot of support for their their builders and their their pilots,” Elliott said.
Following Saturday’s crash, EAA spokesperson Dick Knapinski cautioned that each airplane crash has to be looked at as its own unique incident.
“As with motor vehicle accidents, the causes of those mishaps 50 or 100 or 1,000 miles apart from one another almost mostly have completely different circumstances involved,” he said.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
