Four hurt in French Valley plane crash
By: JOHN HALL - Staff Writer
Craft stays mostly intact as it
hurtles into canyon south of airport
FRENCH VALLEY -- Four people, including a 7-year-old Menifee girl, were
injured Tuesday when the small plane they were in went down in a canyon south of
French Valley Airport.
Firefighters and paramedics were sent to the area
at 1:21 p.m. and found the aircraft about 300 feet into a brush-covered canyon
near the dirt extension of Sky Canyon Drive.
The pilot, a 52-year-old Oregon man, two Menifee women, ages 34 and 48, and
the girl were taken by ambulances to two local hospitals to be treated, said
Riverside County Fire Department Capt. Sean Dakin. The names of those on the
plane were not released.
Paramedics said all had minor injuries except for the 34-year-old woman,
whose injuries were described as moderate. One of the women had blood on her
face from a head wound and all those hurt were conscious and talking -- some
even joking -- with rescuers.
Fire officials credited the pilot with
doing a good job to get the aircraft safely on the ground without slamming into
the side of the canyon.
"To walk away from a crash like that is
remarkable," said fire Capt. Fernando Herrera, who added that it was "extremely
lucky" the plane didn't burst into flames when it hit the ground.
The
plane's tail section was broken off, but the fuselage and wings appeared to be
intact. A man at the scene familiar with the plane described it as a
four-passenger Lancair 4P.
The Federal Aviation Administration is
investigating the crash. Authorities at the scene said the plane appeared to
have some type of mechanical problem or loss of power as it approached the
airport for a landing.
A man at the scene said he was the pilot's son and
that he had just flown the plane himself about 15 minutes earlier on a
sightseeing flight above Canyon Lake. He landed at French Valley Airport, let
the engine cool for about five minutes and then the four others went up, the
unidentified man said.
He said he watched as the plane made its final
turn to land and then it "just disappeared," sending him racing to the
scene.
One of the first 911 calls came from a man at nearby New Covenant
Fellowship Church on Calistoga Drive who saw the plane go down.
Travis
Turner, 37, said he was on the roof of the church talking with an
air-conditioning maintenance worker when he saw the plane. He barely heard
it.
"It was so quiet, I didn't even notice it at first," said Turner, the
church's information technology and production engineer.
What he did
notice was how low it was flying.
"I could see the bolts on the wings,"
Turner said.
"It was maybe 20, 30 feet above the building," which he said
is much, much lower than the altitude at which he typically sees aircraft flying
as they approach the airport.
"It was just fluttering, (the engine)
barely running, if at all," Turner said. "As soon as it cleared the building, it
just dropped into the canyon."
Turner said he quickly called 911 on his
cell phone and watched as the door popped open on the plane and two people
climbed out.
Fire officials said the 7-year-old girl and the pilot had
already started to walk up a dirt path from the plane toward the unpaved road by
the time rescuers got there.
Before the girl could get to the top,
someone met her and carried her the rest of the way to the dirt road, where she
was tended to by firefighters. Baskets were used by firefighters to carry the
three adults to awaiting ambulances.
-- Staff writer David Carlson
contributed to this report. Contact staff writer John Hall at (951) 676-4315,
Ext. 2628, or jhall@californian.com.
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