garym@telesoft.UUCP (Gary Morris @shine) (09/18/85)
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[extracted from "The San Diego Union" Wed 9/18/85,
"Stunt pilot is presumed dead" by Neil Ball and Lisa Petrillo]
CARLSBAD, CA - Art Scholl, a veteran stunt pilot is presumed dead after
crashing into the Pacific Ocean three miles offshore.
The Coast Guard yesterday abandoned its search for pilot Art Scholl after
only finding bits of his lightweight, aerobatic biplane floating in the sea.
Scholl, 53, had taken off alone Monday afternoon from Palomar-McClellan
Airport (CRQ) and was filming flying sequences for "Top Gun," a coming
Paramount Pictures Corp. movie about fighter pilots at Miramar Naval Air
Station. He was performing a difficult maneuver call an inverted flat spin.
With a remote-controlled movie camera bolted to the passenger seat of his
small Pitts Model S2A biplane, Scholl directed the plane in a nose-first spin
toward the water from an altitute of about 5,000 MSL.
"We were up there observing," said fellow stunt pilot Charles Wentworth,
a partner in Art Scholl Aviation in Rialto, near San Bernardino. "He entered
a spin about 5,000 feet high. He didn't come out of the spin. We lost him
from sight."
No one saw the actual crash, which occurred about 5:40 p.m. Monday. Mechanic
Kevin Kammer, co-piloting the observation plane, heard Scholl's final radio
transmission.
"The last thing we heard him say was: 'I'm having a little trouble here.
I'm having real trouble here,'" Kammer said.
"Art had a (para)chute and a life preserver, but the plane sank fast,"
said Wentworth, who radioed immediatedly to Palomar-McClellan tower.
The Coast Guard sent a helicopter and the cutter Point Hobart from Oceanside
Harbor, sweeping a 25-square mile area. But darkness forced a suspension of
the search Monday evening. The only trace the Coast Guard found yesterday was
some debris floating three miles southwest of the Encinitas power plant.
At 9:30 a.m. yesterday, the search was called off, ...
...
It is uncertain whether the plane will be recovered. Scholl's plane is
believed to have sunk in 900 feet to the ocean floor and the Coast Guard lacks
the equipment to retrieve it, ...
In more than three decades of flying, Scholl logged more than 14,000 hours
in 182 types of aircraft, everything from balloons and vintage planes to
helicopters and jumbo jets. His flying talents were featured in more than 100
films and television shows.
...
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GARY A. MORRIS -- TeleSoft, San Diego, CA (619) 457-2700
(UUCP) ...{decvax,ucbvax}!sdcsvax!telesoft!garym
"Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done
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