John McKittrick, 42, of Thousand Oaks, Calif., was killed Sunday morning as he practiced takeoffs and landings on his own for the first time in his vintage P-51D Mustang. McKittrick, an experienced pilot, had been flying with an instructor and landed at Camarillo Airport. The instructor had just gotten out of the aircraft and told tower controllers that McKittrick would be soloing the airplane and would stay in the pattern, an FAA spokesman told the Ventura County Star. According to the FAA, the airplane bounced on landing, ran off the side of the runway and flipped. The vintage Mustang broke apart in the accident, but there was no post-crash fire. The airplane had been scheduled to appear at the Gathering of Mustangs & Legends this September in Ohio.
