CHICAGO (WLS) -- As authorities try to figure out how a small plane fell from the sky and five people ended up dead in Southern California on Super Bowl Sunday, there is a deepening mystery involving the pilot and Chicago police.Police in Yorba Linda, near Los Angeles, originally said that the pilot Tony Pastini was a retired Chicago police officer after finding a CPD badge and some paperwork in the cockpit of his crashed plane. On Tuesday they walked that back, saying those were fake items and he wasn't a Chicago cop.The ABC7 I-Team first reported questions about the police angle Monday when CPD officials told us they had no record of Pastini.In California Tuesday afternoon, his daughter spoke with sister station KABC, and was asked about the apparently fake Chicago police credentials. She declined the opportunity to explain. "I'd prefer not to comment and let investigators do their job," Julia Ackley said. "My father is exactly who he said he was. "We do know Pastini was a restaurant owner, first at a Chicago-style Italian restaurant in Nevada and then a sushi restaurant in Carson City.On social platforms and in media interviews Pastini said that he had been a Chicago cop for 21 years before retiring and moving west to open restaurant. He then worked as a food safety instructor, and his name is still listed on a Nevada state website.But in Chicago the police pension database doesn't list him by Pastini or the birth name provided by his daughter, Jordan Isaacson. As the I-Team first reported Monday, Chicago police officials have no record of an officer by either name.Federal authorities said he did have a legitimate pilots license. "I've been in his planes since I was a baby," said Ackley. "We were just in his plane last month. "Pastini's plane seemed to explode and fall from the sky on Sunday, straight into a Yorba Linda home where a Super Bowl party was getting underway. Two men and two women inside the home were killed.Chicago police told the I-Team that they are not investigating the case as a possible fraud because the potential suspect is already dead, and federal crash investigators don't believe the CPD angle had anything to do with what happened in Los Angeles.The I-Team was also told by a Chicago police official that the numbered CPD badge found in Pastini's crashed plane had been reported lost in 1978. How it ended up in Pastini's hands, and his plane on Sunday, are not known. Occasionally CPD stars can be found for sale, even on eBay, along with badges and ID cards from other law enforcement agencies.<doc-sep>EMBED >More News Videos Five people were killed and two others were burned Sunday afternoon after a small plane crashed in a Yorba Linda neighborhood, authorities said. EMBED >More News Videos An Orange County sheriff's lieutenant said five people were killed when a small plane crashed in a suburban Yorba Linda neighborhood Sunday, Feb. 3, 2019. YORBA LINDA, Calif. (WLS) -- A 75-year-old man was at the cockpit controls during a horrific plane crash in Southern California on Super Bowl Sunday, police said.Police initially said Tony Pastini was a former Chicago police officer. Tuesday morning, police said that Pastini was not a former Chicago police officer, but apparently had false Chicago police credentials on him for an unknown reason.Five people were killed, according to authorities in Yorba Linda, when the Cessna piloted by Pastini crashed into a suburban neighborhood near Los Angeles. Police say he was a veteran private pilot and restaurateur.A federal air safety team was working Monday night to determine what happened and why. "All of the sudden we heard like the plane like winding like whooo and then we heard and explosion like in the sky and it shook our house" said one witness Leslie Krushat.There were small explosions when the Cessna 414-A hit a home and killed four family members hosting a Super Bowl party. Two men and two women in the home were killed in the fiery crash and then the plane bounced into another backyard. Burning plane parts were scattered throughout the neighborhood.Investigators say the pilot has just taken off from an airport about ten minutes away and took a sharp left turn before falling from the sky. "Preliminary radar data show that a airplane climb to about 7800 feet before started rapidly to the center of the ground," said NTSB investigator Maya Smith. "A few witness reports say that they saw the airplane coming out of a cloud at a very high speed before parts of the airplane such as tail and then subsequently wings started to break off. "Another NTSB officer, Elliott Simpson, said there was a four-block long debris field. "We're in the process of documenting the debris and the wreckage," Simpson said. "The main cabin of the airplane along with one of the engines came to rest at a bottom of a ravine in the backyard of somebody's house. "Pastini was a restaurant owner in Nevada and apparently flying to see family members in Southern California. He was said to have retired from the Chicago police department in the mid-1980s after 21 years on the force. Chicago police officials on Monday said they were unable to verify that an officer by his name or another name he was known to use actually worked for the department.<doc-sep>The pilot whose twin-engine plane crashed into a Southern California home on Sunday, killing him and four people on the ground, was not a retired Chicago Police Department officer as authorities initially believed. Antonio Pastini, 75, of Gardnerville, Nevada, piloted the plane that crashed into a single-family home in a residential section of Yorba Linda, California. The Orange County Sheriff’s Office on Monday identified Pastini as a former Chicago police officer, based on a badge and ID they found on him. On Tuesday, the sheriff's office said it had discovered that he was never a Chicago officer and that they “do not believe the credentials are legitimate.” “We recovered from the site what we believed were legitimate credentials from Chicago police with the name of the decedent on them,” a spokesperson for the Orange County Sheriff’s office told NBC News on Tuesday. Chicago police confirmed to NBC News that Pastini was never a member of the force. Pastini was born Jordan Isaacson, his daughter, Julia Ackley, told NBC Los Angeles. "We have no record of anyone by either name ever being a police officer in Chicago," city police spokesman Anthony Gugliemi told NBC News. Gugliemi said the ID that Pastini had on him has "never been a design ever issued by the Chicago Police Department." It appears to be "fictitiously created," he said. Chicago police also said the metal star that Pastini had with him was reported stolen in 1978. It remains unclear why Pastini’s small airplane, which climbed 7,800 feet and then quickly descended, crashed. Maja Smith, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, told NBC News that witnesses of the crash claim they saw the plane breaking apart in the air. Ackley said that her father owned a sushi restaurant in Nevada and a tree farm in Oregon. She described him as an experienced pilot who had flown for decades.<doc-sep>
Antonio Pastini, the pilot killed on Sunday when his small plane plunged into a Yorba Linda home, was first identified by California authorities as a retired Chicago police officer. But a spokeswoman for the Chicago police said Pastini, 75, was never employed by the department and was carrying a Chicago police badge missing since 1978. Carrie Braun, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, said the metal police star recovered from Pastini’s body “appeared to be legitimate,” and initially led authorities to describe Pastini as a retired Chicago police officer. But Chicago police told the sheriff’s department Monday that they had no record of Pastini being employed by the department. Michelle Tannehill, a spokeswoman for the Chicago police, said the badge found on Pastini was reported lost in 1978. The missing badge adds another question to an investigation already rife with them. The four people killed in the home struck by Pastini’s plane remain unidentified, and the cause of the crash is still unknown. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board could take as long as 18 months to learn why Pastini’s plane broke apart and plunged, flaming, into an Orange County suburb. About 10 minutes after taking off from Fullerton Municipal Airport on Sunday afternoon, Pastini’s twin engine Cessna came apart in the sky and crashed into the 19000 block of Crestknoll Drive, in a residential neighborhood of Yorba Linda, authorities said. Pastini was killed, along with four people inside the home. Wreckage of the plane was strewn across the suburban neighborhood. Investigators have yet to identify the victims because their bodies were badly burned. Braun, the sheriff’s spokeswoman, said they had obtained dental records for some of the victims and hoped to identify them on Tuesday. Two others suffered moderate burns. Julia Ackley, a Torrance resident and one of Pastini’s daughters, told The Times that her father often flew to Southern California to visit her family from Oregon or Nevada, where he was a restaurant and business owner. Pastini had no record with the Federal Aviation Administration of accidents, incidents or discipline, said Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the FAA.