Actor Harrison Ford does not recall the moments before crashing his vintage plane onto a Los Angeles-area golf course in March, badly damaging the aircraft and suffering serious injuries, according to an National Transportation Safety Board report released on Thursday.
The 72-year-old star of such blockbuster films as "Star Wars" and "Raiders of the Los Ark" was the sole occupant of the 1942 single-engine Ryan Aeronautical ST-3KR when it went down on a golf course near the Santa Monica Municipal Airport.
Ford had just taken off from the airport on March 5 when he experienced a loss of power at about 1,100 feet, according to the report, which was published in the Los Angeles Times.
"(The pilot) stated that he did not attempt an engine restart but maintained an airspeed of 85 mph (137 kph) and initiated a left turn back toward the airport; however during the approach he realized that the airplane was unable to reach the runway," an NTSB investigator said in the report.
"The pilot did not recall anything further about the accident sequence," the investigator said. "Subsequently, the airplane struck the top of a tree that was about 65 feet tall and then impacted the ground in an open area of the golf course."
The crash, which saw the actor's plane come down a short distance from houses, follows years of complaints by residents in the heavily populated beachside community outside Los Angeles that the airport interferes with their quality of life.