Sheriff’s officials say pilot whose plane crashed into Yorba Linda home, killing 5, likely was not a retired Chicago police officer

The pilot of a Cessna that crashed into a Yorba Linda neighborhood, killing him and four people in a home, was carrying what investigators now suspect to have been false law enforcement credentials identifying him as a retired Chicago police officer, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said on Tuesday.

Relying on what was described as a Chicago Police Department badge and retirement papers found on the crash scene, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department initially described Antonio Pastini – a 75-year-old restaurant owner from Nevada – as a retired officer.

The Chicago Police Department has since reached out to Orange County investigators to let them know that the credentials appear to be fake, said Carrie Braun, an Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman.

Officer Michelle Tannehill, a Chicago Police Department spokeswoman, confirmed on Tuesday afternoon that neither Pastini’s name, or another name his family said he previously went by, were found in their records of retired officers. Tannehill said a police badge with the same number of the badge found in the crashed aircraft had been reported lost in 1978.

It wasn’t clear if Pastini served time with another law enforcement agency.

Pastini was a longtime aviator who was visiting a daughter and granddaughter the weekend of the crash.

Authorities said Pastini’s 1981 Cessna 414A took off from Fullerton Airport about 1:35 p.m. Sunday and shortly after the twin-engine aircraft began to break up mid-flight, sending pieces crashing down onto a residential neighborhood just east of the Yorba Linda Country Club, killing four inside one home and the pilot.

In a 2008 article in the Nevada Appeal, a reporter wrote that Pastini spent 21 years with the Chicago Police Department, initially joining as a patrolman. After retiring, Pastini told the paper he moved to Northern Nevada and began opening restaurants.

“A couple of cops came by and found out I used to be a cop, too, and it became a cop hangout,” Pastini told the Nevada Appeal about a restaurant he opened in Reno in 1986. “It was good food. Great food.”

According to the Nevada Appeal article, Pastini sold several of his restaurants in the late ’90s, after being diagnosed with cancer. He said he re-joined the restaurant industry after recovering.

Braun said the allegedly false law enforcement credentials are not expected to impact the death investigation being carried out by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

The bodies of those killed in the plane crash were recovered by the Orange County Coroner’s Office on Sunday, but because of the nature of their injuries, investigators couldn’t identify those who were on the ground through fingerprinting.

Sheriff’s officials on Tuesday were still working to officially identify all of the victims, as federal aviation investigators look into the cause of the crash itself.