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By Lookout Staff

September 15, 2011 -- A faulty air speed indicator and a botched landing attempt appear to have been the cause of a light plane crash in Sunset Park, according to a report released by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Friday.

The student pilot took off from Santa Monica Airport at 2:23 p.m. Monday afternoon, August 29, the report says.

Shortly into the flight, he noticed that the needle on the airspeed indicator was behaving erratically, and then it stopped working altogether.

He requested and received permission from air controllers to return for a landing. That's when things started going terribly wrong.

The pilot came in too high and was still thirty or forty feet off the ground by the time he was over the last quarter of the runway. By then it was too late to put the plane down.

The tower told him to go back around and try again. The pilot acknowleged receiving the tower's direction and opened up the throttle to climb the plane.

That's when he saw that he was headed into some power lines.

He turned the plane right and left and managed to avoid them but got snagged on a tree top about 900 feet from the end of the runway.

The plane then crashed into a block wall and a house about 85 feet from the tree.

The NTSB is continuing to look into the crash and should finish its investigation sometime in Spring 2012, according to Wayne R. Pollack, chief investigator.

The pilot broke his leg and ankle. Three house painters who were working at the crash site pulled the pilot from the plane. Two of the painters were slightly injured by by flying debris from the crash.