2 IN HOME SURVIVE PLANE CRASH.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Daily News Staff Writer

It took four years of nagging, but Carol Peiman finally got her husband to buy an emergency ladder for their home in case of a disaster. And not a day too soon.

``I was reading the instructions last night before we went to bed and said, Oh honey, we've got to start practicing,'' Peiman recalled Tuesday. ``I never realized I'd have to use it so quickly.''

Shortly before dawn Tuesday, as the couple slept, their house was hit by a single-engine plane - flown by a pilot who authorities say was not certified to operate in such foggy, inclement weather.

The fiery crash a mile from Van Nuys Airport immediately killed the pilot and a passenger believed to be his wife. But the Peimans were trapped in their second-story bedroom, as flames engulfed the stairway - the only way out.

Fortunately, the day before the crash, 68-year-old Nate Peiman had stashed the emergency ladder next to their balcony. He unfurled the rungs and his 65-year-old wife, still in her bathrobe, went down first and stumbled on the final step, bruising her shin. Nate Peiman then climbed down through the jet-black smoke. Neighbors watched the escape in astonishment.

``We could have jumped, but I'm sure we would have gotten a few broken bones,'' Nate Peiman said after firefighters had extinguished what remained of their house and the plane, now resting in their living room. ``If the impact had been 20 feet closer - it would have been all over.''

Carol Peiman said her nagging and the $19.95 ladder paid off.

``Thank God for that ladder,'' she said. ``There's got to be someone up there watching over us.''

Firefighters estimate that the Peimans' home in the 17300 block of Hartland Street had $105,000 in damage - just a week after the couple finally finished repairs from the Northridge Earthquake. The 1994 temblor caused $250,000 in damage to their house of 20 years, forcing them to live in an apartment for 18 months.

So when the plane hit about 5:15 a.m., they thought it was another quake.

``I heard my wife screaming and the fire alarm going off, so I opened the door and tried to exit but the flames were too high,'' Nate Peiman said. ``My wife has been bugging me to get one of those (emergency ladders) for four years because we only have one exit from the bedroom.''

Exactly why the North Hills man's 1997 Mooney M20R crashed into the Peimans' house was not immediately clear and remains under investigation by federal officials. But several residents of the quiet neighborhood off Vanowen Street said they heard the plane circling, its engine sputtering, before the crash.

The racket woke Al Castaneda, 39, and brought him to the window of his sixth-story apartment.

``All of a sudden from my left I saw the plane coming down at an 85-degree angle in a slow spiral,'' he said. ``It hit and exploded instantly in a ball of fire.''

The impact of the crash shook other neighbors awake and brought about 100 of them into the street, where they were startled minutes later by a second, larger explosion.

``It lit up the whole sky and was so powerful it just knocked everyone back and some people hit the ground,'' said Ray Diamond, 19, who lives across from the Peimans' house.

Barry Adelman, 42, another neighbor, said he was half awake when the plane hit and ran outside to see whether he could help.

``I thought they were dead - the whole front of their house was on fire and smoke was just billowing out,'' he said. ``Then, just like out of a movie, I saw the ladder and they came down and went into the street. It was surreal.''

The couple said the joy of escaping alive was tempered by the death of the two people in the plane.

Nate Peiman, who works for a company that supplies catered meals to corporate jets, said they plan to rebuild. Again.

One of their first concerns, though, was finding their cat, Merv, a 16-year-old Russian Blue who had gone into hiding. Just like after the earthquake.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1 -- color) Nate Peiman talks with a Los Angeles firefighter after a small plane from Van Nuys Airport crashed into his home in Reseda. See Page 17.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News

(2) Homeowner Nate Peiman and his daughter, Michele Ross, survey the damage caused by a plane.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News