Mystery Deepens : Student Pilot, Now Missing, May Be 3rd Victim in Plane Crash

Skin divers returned Wednesday to search the waters off Newport Beach for a possible third victim of the crash of a two-seater plane in which a man and woman died early Tuesday morning.

The Orange County coroner’s office and the National Transportation Safety Board initially believed there were only two victims but are now exploring the possibility that another man--a student pilot who had access to the plane and who now is missing--was on board the single-engine Cessna when it plunged wing-first into the sea.

The bodies of Richard Michael Brownell, 27, and Sandra L. O’Grady, 25, were found Tuesday, still strapped to their seats in the cockpit of the Cessna 152 that sank in the ocean several hundred yards from the Newport Beach Pier. Alan Crawford, the safety board agent investigating the crash, said Brownell was in the pilot seat of the craft, which divers found upside down in 47 feet of water.

Autopsies performed Wednesday showed that O’Grady died of massive head and body injuries, a coroner’s spokesman said, but failed to show what caused Brownell’s death. Further tests were ordered.

Neither Brownell, a self-employed landscaper from Anaheim, nor O’Grady, a cocktail waitress from Huntington Beach, was licensed to fly, even as students, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Oklahoma City said.

Car Found

The missing student pilot was identified by sources as Kevin Lee Eiseminger, 30, a quality parts inspector for McDonnell Douglas Corp., whose car was found near the plane’s tie-down spot at John Wayne Airport.

As a member of a group called the Flying Club, to which the plane was leased, Eiseminger had access to the craft. Sources said he was seen with Brownell and O’Grady at a bar in Westminster several hours before the crash. Authorities said neither they nor his relatives have been able to find Eiseminger.

“He was seen the night before in the company of those two, his car was found at the tie-down spot and he is missing,” sheriff’s spokesman Dick Olson said. “It makes (investigators) wonder, but there’s nothing at this point that confirms a third victim.”

Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol divers searched for about three hours Wednesday but found no evidence of a third victim in the ocean a quarter-mile off 19th Street, where the plane crashed at about 2 a.m. Tuesday.

“There were only two seats in that plane,” said Crawford of the NTSB, “but . . . I suppose a third person could fit in there. I believe the coroner’s office has already talked to (Eiseminger’s) relatives, but we just don’t know . . . . His friends know he’s missing too, but it’s a bit of a mystery right now.”

Restaurant Receipts

After finding receipts from a Westminster restaurant in the plane wreckage, detectives learned from O’Grady’s co-workers at Joshua’s Parlor in Westminster that she had left the bar to go flying with two men, Olson said.

Larry Tracy, a Flying Club member who coordinates new plane tie-downs with the airport, said Eiseminger has belonged to the club since September, 1983. The club has about 150 members, about half of them McDonnell Douglas employees.

Eiseminger had flown the plane before and would have had access to it, Tracy said. However, he said, the plane was not reserved or scheduled by Eiseminger or any other pilot for flight, which is required by club rules, either for late Monday or early Tuesday.

“We keep our keys under a combination lock, and (Eiseminger) knows that combination and can pick up that key at any time,” Tracy said. “But he has to make a reservation for the plane.”

FAA spokesman Mark Weaver said Eiseminger was issued a student pilot’s medical certificate--allowing him to fly with a licensed instructor--on Dec. 5, 1984. It is a violation of federal aviation regulations for a student pilot to fly with passengers until properly licensed as a private pilot, Weaver said.