SOUTHLAND COPTER PILOT KILLED IN CRASH; LA CANADA MAN LOVED FLYING.

Byline: Bhavna Mistry and Lisa Van Proyen Daily News Staff Writers

If helicopter pilot Lynn Ansley Efting could have chosen a way to leave this world, it would have been just the way he died - carrying out his passion for flying, his wife said.

The 66-year-old La Canada Flintridge resident was killed Thursday afternoon when his small, two-seater craft crashed into a ravine in the hills a mile south of Littlerock, officials said.

Efting, whom his wife described as a quiet and intelligent man, was found dead inside his crumpled Robinson R-22, with his seat belt still fastened, officials said.

Efting, who flew fixed-wing planes for more than 40 years and helicopters for five years, left home Thursday morning for a pleasure ride from Pacoima's Whiteman Airport to his hangar at a small airport in Adelanto, said his wife, Susan, 60.

``He really loved his flying,'' she said in a telephone interview Thursday night. ``He loved the helicopter.''

She said she always worried about her husband - they were about to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary Saturday - when he flew and was especially concerned Thursday because of high wind.

``I worried about him whenever he went up,'' she said.

``If he had picked any way he wanted to go, this would have been it.''

The wreckage was spotted by a sheriff's helicopter crew, searching the hills after two 911 calls about 1:30 p.m.

Jacinto Mendoza, the cook at Carol's Cafe in Littlerock, said he saw the crash. He was looking out a kitchen window across Pearblossom Highway when he saw the helicopter flying west, a few hundred feet above the lowest hills.

``One of the blades just breaks, and it starts going down,'' Mendoza said.

Sheriff's deputies said they would release no information on possible causes of the crash because the investigation will be handled by the National Transportation Safety Board. NTSB investigators are expected to arrive at the crash scene today.

The Associated Press reported that the small, relatively affordable R-22 has been involved in hundreds of mishaps since it was introduced in 1979. The last FAA count, in 1995, put the crash total at 339.

Efting described her husband as an educated pilot who regularly attended air safety courses and was licensed to teach helicopter flying.

Lynn Efting was retired as the manager and part owner of Glendale Builders' Supplies in Glendale and had an engineering degree from USC, his wife said. Efting was also previously a longtime Rotary Club member in La Canada, where he lived for 39 years.