Breeding: Santa Paula Airport
pilot found dead in wreckage on South Mountain
August 05, 2015
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
An 82-year-old Santa Paula pilot apparently died Saturday shortly after he took off from the airport, an accident that was only discovered hours later when the wreckage of his plane was spotted high on South Mountain.
James “Jim” Breeding was a Santa Paula business owner and resident of the Ojai-Santa Paula area who took off in his twin-engine Cessna 337 from Santa Paula Airport August 1 about 9 a.m. The wrecked plane was spotted at about 2:30 p.m. by a passerby on the side of a hill about four miles southeast of the airport, near Loftus Canyon Road and Morgan Canyon Road, on private oil company property.
A Santa Paula Fire Company was the first on the scene and Captain John Harber said the person that reported the wreckage first thought it was a car that went over the side of the road.
“Upon further investigation he realized it was an aircraft and called 911,” and Harber said when SPFD Firefighters responded and went over the side of the road to investigate they found the plane with Breeding’s body.
Early morning fog, Harber added, might have kept the crash from view until the sky cleared.
Ventura County Fire also responded to the scene and helped SPFD personnel retrieve the body from the wreckage.
Once reported as a downed plane a Ventura County Sheriff’s helicopter circled the scene of the wreckage as emergency responders waited for the Ventura County Medical Examiner, Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Board; the latter two agencies are investigating the incident.
Breeding had recently listed the airplane with an online airplane broker, asking $89,500 for the six seater Cessna manufactured in 1972; the plane was marketed as a “Hangared California Plane,” for the last 25 years, with “near new” tires, brakes and battery. The Cessna noted the ad, had “Very good windows and interior.”
Breeding had been the registered owner — with a Talkeetna, Alaska P.O. Box as his address — since 2008. The registration for the plane — which had one engine in front and other at the rear of the Cessna — expired July 31.
Breeding reportedly had ranched locally and was a business owner, including a company incorporated in 1992 named Hangar 57; according to listings Hangar 57 was in the “self-propelled” aircraft business.
Initially it was reported that Breeding’s plane could have been undiscovered on the mountainside for several days, although there were several witnesses that saw him take off Saturday morning; there are no witnesses to the crash.
Breeding was an active pilot who reportedly been flying since he was a teenager.
An autopsy is scheduled for Monday.
