Relatives of Man Who Died in Plane Crash Sue Santa Monica Flight School

By City News Service
Relatives of a man who died when two small planes collided in flight earlier this year near Calabasas sued a flight training school and the pilot of the other aircraft.

Marta Wade, widow of Christopher Wade, and the couple's children, Ryan and Jamie Wade, filed a wrongful death suit Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court against the American Flyers school in Los Angeles and one of its employees, Peter Nagy.

Wade, 63, and Cheryl Jolene Strawn, 69, died in the collision of the two Cessna 172s that occurred about 2 p.m. April 29 about eight miles east- northeast of Ventura, according to Allen Kenitzer of the Federal Aviation Administration.
Nagy was providing flight instruction in the American Flyers plane at the time of the crash, the suit states.
A representative of American Flyers did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
Strawn was a production designer who worked on the  "Nightmare on Elm Street'' movies.
The plane piloted by Nagy landed on the Westlake Golf Course in Westlake Village, the last Los Angeles County community before the Ventura County border along the Ventura (101) Freeway, while the aircraft with Wade and Strawn crashed in Malibu Creek State Park, igniting a one-acre brush fire that was quickly extinguished by county firefighters, Kenitzer said.