IN LINE OF FLIGHT; NOISE, CRASHES TROUBLE AIRPORT NEIGHBORS NOISE STILL MAJOR COMPLAINT OF AIRPORT'S NEIGHBORS.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Staff Writer

Leon Douroux was mowing his lawn last week when he heard fire engines and helicopters converge on the latest airplane crash in his North Hills neighborhood.

He kept mowing.

The twin-engine Cessna had landed on Hayvenhurst Avenue, striking two school buses but causing only two minor injuries. It was the fourth such emergency landing in recent years, including one that plowed into Douroux's back yard in 1995.

Crashes are something he takes in stride.

``The noise is the thing that aggravates me. I can damn near name the plane by the sound of its engine,'' said Douroux, a 75-year-old retired contractor who has lived on Napa Street in the flight path of Van Nuys Airport for 36 years.

His neighbors share his feelings by and large.

Many who live in the flight path of the busiest general aviation airport in the world say they worry less about a plane crash than the numbing noise of jets and prop planes that buzz their houses every day.

Douroux's next-door neighbor Mark Rayzberg, 37, said he's had enough of the noise after six years.

``We're looking for another place,'' he said. ``We cannot stay here. It's too noisy.''

Aviation and other officials are planning meetings in coming months to address the noise problem.

Among them is a town hall meeting July 10 at which William Withycombe, the Federal Aviation Administration's western regional administrator, will field residents' complaints about flight routes and noise.

Also, the Board of Airport Commissioners plans to meet to consider a new rule that would limit the number of noisy Stage 2 jets at the airport. And the state Department of Transportation will convene a hearing in September to judge if the airport is in compliance with state noise regulations.

``We will continue to work with the neighbors to do meaningful noise measures,'' said Van Nuys Airport spokeswoman Stacy Geere. ``It's our goal to balance the needs of the aviation community with those of the residents.''

As for preventing crashes, there isn't much the airport can do.

Geere said the airport has a good safety record considering the volume of flights it serves: Between 1988 and 1998, the airport has had more than 5.6 million takeoffs and landings, with 22 accidents.

``We'd like to reassure our neighbors that the airport is very safe, as demonstrated by our track record kept over the last 10 years,'' she said.

Those who would like to limit the airport's operations say just one accident is too many.

``It's just a question of time before there's a severe air disaster,'' said Gerald Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino. ``They have to encourage as much air traffic to go out to Palmdale as possible. If they don't, then all they can do is sit around and wait for the next air crash.''

Deadly crashes

Among the fatal crashes in the past decade was a July 1991 crash that claimed three lives when a twin-engine plane crashed on approach to the airport. The plane hit a storage building behind a home and narrowly missed several other houses on San Jose Street.

The pilot of a twin-engine Cessna was killed in November 1996 when he tried to land in heavy fog and missed the runway and skidded into six parked planes.

In June 1997, Carol and Nate Peiman barely escaped with their lives when a single-engine plane crashed into their Reseda home as they were sleeping.

Two people on board the plane died, but the Peimans crawled from their burning house using an emergency ladder.

A year later, Carol Peiman said she and her husband just recently moved back in after nearly $300,000 in repairs to their Hartland Street home.

They now have the five-bedroom house up for sale, partly in response to the trauma of the crash but more because of the aircraft noise, which Carol Peiman said she became more sensitive to following the crash.

``After that happened, it left me really shaken, and every time a plane came over, I thought it was coming into the house again,'' she said.

The crash last week, in which there were only two minor injuries, rekindled those fears, she said.

``I thought that was the second miracle because with us, we could have been killed in our plane crash,'' she said. ``The crash really turned our lives upside down for the past year.''

Troubled plane

Last week's crash remains under investigation, but the company that owns the plane and another that chartered it provided clues to the cause.

Sunshine Airlines, which chartered the plane to carry passengers to Arizona, issued a statement saying that on the day of the crash, the pilot made a precautionary landing at Bullhead City, Ariz., due to erratic engine gauge readings.

The passengers were taken off the plane, and their trip resumed on another aircraft.

Sussex Aviation, the company that owns the plane, then asked pilot Michael G. Busch to return it to Van Nuys for inspection, according to the statement by Sunshine Airlines. But in the final minute of flight, as he was approaching Van Nuys Airport, both engines quit within a minute of each other, forcing Busch to land short of the runway, according to the statement.

There was still fuel on the plane, and gauges showed the plane had more than enough fuel to complete the flight, the statement said.

Busch said in an interview with the Daily News that his plane did not run out of fuel, but he declined to discuss the possible cause.

`Don't feel unsafe'

Some residents who live near that crash site said they were not overly concerned about the danger of a plane going down near their home.

``They land right through my back yard. I've been here 22 years, and you get used to it,'' said Jack Lester, 54, who lives at the intersection where the crash occurred. ``You just get used to it. If it happens, it happens. I'm not going to worry about it.''

``I don't feel it's unsafe,'' said Lillian Stonebraker, 78, who lives near the crash scene. ``I've lived here 30 years and seen two or three of them crash. It doesn't bother me. We live in a dangerous world, so I don't feel it's unsafe.''

But for Jim Beck, 32, the fear of a crash stems from the planes that regularly bank low over his house.

``I know sooner or later that they're going to hit this house,'' he said. ``Every single day they fly over our house so low you could take a rock and hit the pilot.''

Beck said there is only one thing that concerns him more than a crash - the constant noise of planes landing.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo: (1 -- color) For 36 years, Leon Douroux has lived under the flight path of Van Nuys Airport. A plane crashed into his home in September 1995.

John Lazar/Daily News

(2) The plane that crash-landed Wednesday rests at the intersection.

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News