Santa Paula Airport, in Southern California, lies between two mountain ridges oriented generally east-west. The closer of them, a couple of miles south of the runway, rises 2,000 feet above the airport elevation. On an August morning in 2015, a low stratus layer had crept up the valley from the Pacific, covering the airport. Fifteen hundred feet deep, it would thin and eventually burn off, probably by midmorning.
The pilot, 82, of a Cessna P337G, a pressurized Skymaster, wanted to get to California City, in the desert north of Los Angeles, to have his annual signed off by a mechanic there. He had more than 3,000 hours, held an airframe and power plant mechanic’s license himself and had a commercial license but no instrument rating. He was in good health and did not use any medications.
