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Pilot in deadly crash was previously disciplined

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The pilot whose plane broke apart and crashed into a Southern California home, killing five people, was disciplined for dangerous flying years earlier, it was reported Friday.

Antonio Pastini, 75, of Gardnerville, Nevada, was flying home after visiting his daughter and granddaughter on Sunday when his Cessna began coming apart and debris slammed into a Yorba Linda home, which caught fire. Four people inside the house died.

The cause of the crash is under investigation.

Years earlier, Pastini, then using the name Jordan Albert Isaacson, had his license twice suspended by the Federal Aviation Administration, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday, citing records kept by the Library of Congress.

In 1977, Pastini had his pilot’s license suspended for 120 days after he flew from Las Vegas to Long Beach, California, in cloudy and icy weather and falsely told an air traffic controller that he had “IFR clearance” that indicated he was capable of flying the route with instruments.

Pastini disregarded airspace rules and posed “a potential threat to himself, his passenger and other users of the system,” wrote an administrative law judge, Jerrell R. Davis.

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