Antonio Pastini: Pilot killed when his plane crashed into California home had fake police credentials

New questions surrounding fatal crash arise after 75-year-old pilot is found to have been carrying falsified retirement documents

The man piloting a small plane who died and killed a family after flying into a California home over the weekend was carrying falsified credentials identifying him as a retired Chicago police officer, authorities said on Tuesday.

Antonio Pastini was killed when the twin-engine plane broke up shortly after takeoff and fell in pieces in Yorba Linda, igniting a fire in a home where four people died on Sunday. The cause of the crash has not been determined.

The 75-year-old was initially identified as a retired officer but Chicago police said there were no records of him working for the department.

The credentials found at the crash site included false retirement papers and a police badge bearing the same number as a badge reported lost in 1978, Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in an email.

Orange County sheriff’s spokeswoman Carrie Braun said the credentials were not legitimate but confirmed the pilot was Mr Pastini. The victims inside the home have yet to be publicly identified.

Mr Pastini’s daughter, Julia Ackley, said her father’s birth name was Jordan Isaacson, but she didn’t say why he changed it. She wouldn’t address the police credentials.

“I’d prefer not to comment, and let the investigators do their job,” Ackley told KABC-TV. “My father is exactly who he said he was.”

She said he was a restaurant owner and an experienced pilot who flew regularly from his home in Nevada to visit family in California.

Aviation safety experts cautioned against drawing early conclusions about the cause of the crash.

“At this stage you don’t make assumptions. You let the evidence lead you where it leads you,” said John Cox, a former commercial pilot and a veteran crash investigator who is head of the consulting firm Safety Operating Systems.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators have been collecting parts of the aircraft, the plane’s records and information about Pastini, who was described as a commercial pilot with an instrument flight rating, a certification that allows pilots to legally fly in certain weather conditions including rain, fog and clouds.

Weather was intermittently rainy across Southern California during the weekend, but specific conditions encountered by the flight were not immediately known.

The Associated Press contributed to this report