The pilot in a crash that left two dead after leaving Lompoc is reported to have had a history of aircraft Federal Aviation Administration violations, including low-altitude acrobatics and an in-flight helicopter sex act with a Swedish porn star.
David Keith Martz, a helicopter and fixed-wing pilot from San Diego, was flying from Lompoc to Carlsbad along with passenger Birger Greg Bacino.
A mayday call reported their plane was losing power over the Los Padres Forest at 9:45 p.m., Aug. 6. Rescue crews weren’t able to reach the crash site, near the Madulce Campground and Don Victor trail in the mountains southwest of Ventucopa, until the next morning. Neither passenger nor pilot survived the crash.
Martz left behind a long rap sheet of FAA sanctions for zany and reckless aerial antics. The feds yanked his license in 1986 for flying with a forged medical certificate, according to Aero News. In 2002, they slapped him with a 30-day suspension for “aerial acrobatics” below 1,500 feet while flying low above a popular surf spot and residential neighborhood just south of La Jolla.
In 2003, the FAA revoked his license again, saying that he set down his helicopter dangerously close to people on the ground at a Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar. Then, in 2005, it was suspended yet again, that time for 230 days—he decided to go through with a helicopter flight from Mexico after hitting a wire and damaging the tail section of his bird.
Shortly after that suspension was up, in July of 2006, Martz landed a helicopter on a public street in Hollywood Hills. Ignoring the LAPD’s attempts to make radio contact, he picked up Motley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee and gave him a lift to a Nine Inch Nails concert in Irvine.
Three years later—also while transporting Lee—he buzzed an LAPD copter while flying erratically on approach to Van Nuys Airport.
In 2009, gossip website TMZ published a video of adult film actress Puma Swede performing a sex act on him as he flew a helicopter over San Diego. The NTSB figured Martz had violated regulation 91.13(a), which prohibits operating an aircraft “in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another.”
The FAA and NTSB are still investigating the cause of the Los Padres crash.
This article appears in Aug 13-20, 2015.
