A small plane that would have been shipped to Nepal in March to teach underprivileged children about aircraft mechanics was stolen from parking lot in an unincorporated area of Torrance and found burned in Long Beach over the weekend.
The plane was taken at around 8:15 p.m. on Jan. 3, after a white van stole an Airstream trailer carrying the aircraft from a parking lot in the 22800 block of Lockness Avenue , according to Los Angeles Police Officer Tony Im.
The plane, a silver 1948 Piper PA-15 aircraft, was found on Saturday, Jan. 13, after it had been set ablaze in an industrial area around 17th Street and Daisy Avenue in Long Beach, according to the owner, Anis Pradhan.
“By the time I got there, it was just the charred remains,” he said. “All the metal had been scrapped and parts had been stripped clean. Just the bottom frame of the trailer was left.”
Pradhan is a certified flight instructor with around two decades of experience who offers flight training and aircraft rentals at Zamperini Field.
The Piper aircraft had been stored at his brother’s warehouse in preparation for shipping to Nepal and was uninsured when it was stolen, he said.
“I’m so scattered,” Pradhan said. “I lost all investment towards this project. I work seven days a week to support this project and it went up in smoke because of some greedy people.”
For the last decade, Pradhan said he has poured over $250,000 into building the aircraft with the ultimate goal of taking the plane to Nepal in March to educate children on how they can find careers in aircraft maintenance and commercial piloting. Pradhan was drawn to Nepal because of his own history, immigrating from the country as a teenager.
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“Nepal is a small country in South Asia that is considered one of the poorest in the world,” he said. “This plane was more than my property, it was a way for the underprivileged people of Nepal to have opportunities to rise above poverty.”
Police had not identified any suspects on Tuesday, but Pradhan said he had seen a group of people hanging around the parking lot in the days before the theft.
A GoFundMe was set up by Pradhan in the hopes of getting his project back on track.
“I can’t wait another 10 years to get this project running,” he said.
