CRASH PROBED SITE SIFTED FOR EXPLOSIVES.

Byline: Carol Rock Staff Writer

CANYON COUNTRY - Explosive ejection cartridges were removed Monday from the wreckage of a vintage plane that crashed the day before into a Canyon Country mobile home park, killing the pilot and forcing two rounds of evacuations.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's bomb squad investigators searched the wreckage for explosive devices that had powered the ejector seats. The cartridges did not deploy before Sunday afternoon's crash at the Mint Canyon Mobile Manor, where a fireball erupted and destroyed three homes while damaging two others.

After the site was determined safe, coroner's investigators began the tedious job of removing the body of the victim, identified by friends as Daniel Lavigna, 62, a doctor from the San Fernando Valley. A film crew following coroner's investigator Julie Wilson was allowed on the property, but residents could not return home until midafternoon after being ordered from their homes Monday morning, the second time since the accident.

The film crew, from New Dominion Pictures, was gathering footage for a reality-based TV series, ``CI: Coroner Investigator.'' New Dominion also produces ``The FBI Files'' and ``The New Detectives.''

``We've had this arrangement with the film company since August,'' said coroner's spokesman Craig Harvey. ``They have probably responded on 50 to 100 calls with Julie. The intent is to educate people on the role of the coroner.''

Although the film crews wandered without restriction, residents were forced to evacuate, and the other media were kept behind a perimeter. An evacuation center was set up from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. for park residents at Mint Canyon Elementary School.

``We had one resident and her son come in,'' said Susan Klose, a disaster services worker for the American Red Cross. ``Most of the other people went to work or to friends' homes. We fed the rescue workers who were here from the coroner's office and sheriff's and fire departments.''

Although Lavigna's body was not removed from the wreckage until 2:30 p.m., Chief Michael Singer of the Los Angeles County Fire Department said, by daybreak, they could confirm that the pilot had not survived.

Singer said that handling the crash of a military-style aircraft posed some unique challenges.

``Civilian aircraft don't have ejector seats, for one,'' Singer said. ``It's an older model, so there wasn't any ordnance or armaments.''

The single-engine T-33 has eight explosive devices - five small actuators, two large charges that boost the seats and one that blows off the canopy, Singer said.

He noted that popping noises heard by witnesses Sunday night could have come from a variety of sources, such as tires, actuators or propane tanks in the mobile home park. He added that, within the debris field, which covered a 30-foot-by-30-foot area, an expended cartridge from a .357 Magnum, detonated by heat, was found.

``That could have been in one of the mobile homes, or on the plane - we don't know,'' he said. ``We did have parts scattered as far away as 150 feet.''

As dusk approached, workers from the Aircraft Recovery Service company hoisted the blackened pieces of the plane from the 5-foot crater just within the park's gates.

Carol Rock, [phone]

carol.rock(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, map

Photo:

(1 -- color -- ran in SAC edition only) Fire Capt. Tony Clift, left, and battalion chief Mike Singer examine the wreckage in the Mint Canyon mobile home park Monday.

(2 -- ran in SAC edition only) A firefighter uses a saw to cut through the wreckage of the vintage military jet that crashed into a Santa Clarita mobile home park Sunday.

(3 -- ran in SAC edition only) Ken Frison, left, assistant superintendent of Sulphur Springs School District, and Dean Matthews, maintenance supervisor of Mint Canyon Elementary School, carry needed supplies away from the school, which was closed Monday during the probe of the crash.

David R. Crane/Staff Photographer

Map:

(ran in SAC edition only) Vintage aircraft crash