Plane Crash Kills McCarthy Aide

G. David Schine--focus of the epic congressional hearings in the 1950s that led to the downfall of Sen. Joseph McCarthy--Schine’s wife and their son were killed Wednesday when their single-engine plane crashed moments after takeoff from Burbank airport, police said.

The plane, which may have suffered engine failure, apparently fell short while attempting an emergency landing on Interstate 5.

The disabled Beechcraft Sundowner angled down toward the traffic-filled roadway, its wings dipping back and forth, then smashed into the ground just yards from the busy freeway, witnesses said.

Burbank firefighters arrived quickly with fire-retardant foam, but there was no fire.

The bodies of the victims--Schine, 69; his wife, former Miss Universe Hillevi Schine, 64, and their son, Frederick Berndt Schine, 34--were removed from the mangled wreckage and taken to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

The elder Schine and the late New York attorney Roy M. Cohn were young investigators for McCarthy in the probe of alleged communist infiltration of the government during the 1950s. Schine was drafted into the Army in 1953 after attempts to obtain a commission for him failed.

A series of events led to the famed Army-McCarthy hearings in mid-1954, during which Schine became the nation’s best known Army private. Charges were leveled on national television that McCarthy’s committee had exerted undue influence to get special favors for Schine in the Army.

McCarthy charged that the Army was packed with communist sympathizers, and his abuse of Army Secretary Robert T. Stevens during the hearings led to the censure of the Wisconsin Republican by the Senate and his fall from public favor.

Family friend Hal Dash said G. David Schine went on to run the Schine Hotels chain, which at one time included the Ambassador Hotel. He later became active in the entertainment business and served as executive producer of the film “The French Connection.”

His wife, born in Sweden, was chosen Miss Universe in 1955.

Their son, a local businessman and LAPD reserve officer, worked in the Ronald Reagan and George Bush White administrations, serving as director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs for the Department of Energy during Bush’s term.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Mitch Barker said the aircraft had taken off from the airport on its way to Palo Alto just before the 1:45 p.m. crash.

The pilot--believed to be Frederick Berndt Schine--had rented the plane in Riverside and then flown to Burbank, where he picked up his parents for the flight to the Bay Area, said Thomas Wilcox, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board.

Wilcox said a preliminary examination showed that the propeller was not turning on impact, suggesting engine failure, but he added that “it’s quite possible that the pilot saw impact was imminent and he could have cut the power off.”

There were no reports of a distress call to the airport tower, Wilcox said. The pilot was properly licensed with the FAA, but had fewer than 150 hours of logged flight time, Wilcox said. It had not been determined whether the plane had gas in its tank, he said.

Airport spokesman Victor Gill said the plane took off to the east, then turned north, crossing the freeway. Witnesses said it appeared to have turned back and was approaching the freeway from the north when it dropped sharply at the last moment.

It crashed into the north bank of the freeway at the Cohasset Street underpass in Sun Valley, less than a block from the border with Burbank.

“Its wings were dipping left to right,” said witness Jim Wahler, “and it appeared to have almost no airspeed whatsoever.”

“He was going awful slow,” said Carmen McMickens of Pasadena, who was driving on the freeway when she saw the plane overhead.

“I saw it rocking and then I thought, ‘This plane is going down.’ ”

Times staff writers Eric Slater, Nieson Himmel, Efrain Hernandez and Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this story.