Plane Crash Prompts Trip to Washington

has prompted city officials to renew efforts to re-examine flight schools at Santa Monica Airport, according to a staff memo released late Friday.

Santa Monica city staff will go to Washington, D.C., to meet with Federal Aviation Administration officials, review flight school leases and meet with flight school operators.

Around 2:30 p.m. on Monday, a single-engine Cessna flown by a student pilot traveling across the country crashed into a home near 21st and Navy streets during an attempt to land at SMO.

No one died in the crash, but the pilot suffered a broken leg, and . According to a memo, a second worker was also injured and no one was in the house at the time of the crash.

According to the memo, the pilot had rented a plane from one of the SMO flight schools. The accident is the first one known to have involved a student pilot directly associated with an SMO flight school.

"This terrible near-tragic plane crash has generated many inquires about increased regulation of flight schools at SMO," Public Works Director Martin Pastucha and Kate Vernez, assistant to City Manager Rod Gould wrote in the memo that Pastucha sent to Santa Monica Mayor Richard Bloom and the Santa Monica City Council. They also noted that in the wake of the accident members of the Santa Monica community have requested that the city review flight school activity at SMO.

Mar Vista and Venice residents have at the airport, well before Monday's crash, .

Regarding the plans to meet with FAA officials, review flight school leases and meet with flight school operators, Pastucha and Vernez noted that flight schools have been "a prescribed activity" per the .

"The city alone cannot restrict flight school operations outside of the Santa Monica Municipal Code, Federal Air Regulations or provisions of their respective lease agreements," they wrote.

In reviewing the flight school leases, city staff plan "to ascertain what flexibility we have in relation to their operations."

As for the meeting with the flight school operators, city staff will "discuss strategies to lessen their impact on the community."

In addition to those efforts, a special meeting of the city council—during which preliminary research findings on SMO will be presented—will be held Oct. 4. Also, multiple community workshops will be staged starting in the fall through April 2012.

City staff will then begin a final planning process in the lead-up to the of the 1984 Settlement Agreement.

"The expiration of the 1984 Agreement presents opportunities for the city to determine what is in the best interests of the city and its citizens," Pastucha and Vernez wrote.