OCEANO DUNES - The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will determine why the vintage plane crashed into the dunes not far from where many were enjoying the off-road vehicle State park.
NTSB investigators spent hours on Thursday photographing and examining the wreckage of the Luscombe 8-A single engine, two-seat, high-wing plane that was designed back in the 1930's.
The FAA plans to haul away the wreckage, piece by piece if necessary, to another location to complete its investigation.
The crash site is just beyond the southeastern boundary fence for the Dunes State Park, miles from the park's entrance, and along an offroad recreation area called the Sand Highway.
"I'm not sure how they are going to be able to, or what they are going to do to recover the wreckage", says Park Ranger Brent Marshall, "but we are able to assist them with some heavy equipment."
Park rangers were first to attend to the pilot who was soon declared dead by paramedics but there were at least a few eyewitnesses to the plane's fatal plunge into the dunes Wednesday afternoon.
"We did get some very good statements that will help the FAA and the NTSB to make a determination", Ranger Brent Marshall adds.
"It looked like he knew what he was doing", says park visitor Davy Hall of Hanford, Ca., "I mean he'd go down and come right back up too."
Hall says he and his son watched the bright yellow plane make sudden dives and climbs and other daring maneuvers along the dunes in the hours before the crash.
"When they said a plane crashed, the first thing that came to my mind was this plane", Hall says surveying the wreckage from his truck, "because he was doing this all day long and when we came out to look, sure enough it was the yellow plane."
It could be several weeks before the FAA and NTSB release the findings of the investigation.
Its been several years since the last deadly plane crash on the Oceano Dunes which sits next to the Oceano Airport.
