By J. Harry Jones and Kristina Davis
The San Diego Union-Tribune
FALLBROOK, Calif. — A small plane with two occupants landed on northbound Interstate 15 in Fallbrook Saturday morning and slammed into the back of a car, killing a woman in the backseat, officials said.
The incident happened about 9:15 a.m. about a mile north of state Route 76. The plane, a single-engine blue and white Lancair IV, landed in the slow lane then slid to the shoulder, where a 2015 Nissan Sentra was parked, said California Highway Patrol Officer Chris Parent.
Parent said the driver was stopped on the shoulder trying to sync his Bluetooth with his vehicle when the car was struck from behind.
The right rear passenger in the car, a woman in her 20s, was killed, said North County Fire Protection District spokesman John Buchanan. Three others in the car -- two men and a woman -- were taken to a hospital with minor to moderate injuries. It took firefighters about 20 minutes to extricate one of the car’s occupants.
The pilot, a man in his 60s, suffered life-threatening injuries while the plane’s passenger, a woman, was expected to survive.
No further information was immediately available on the victims.
Fire officials contained a fuel leak at the wreckage site but there was no fire, Buchanan said.
The righthand lane of the northbound freeway remains closed, and traffic was tangled for miles. Southbound traffic was also jammed due to curious onlookers, as well as Old Highway 395 that parallels the freeway.
The plane was mostly off the freeway, partially in some bushes. The wreckage is not expected to be moved until investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration can get on scene. The crash will also be investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The Lancair is a four-seater, homebuilt plane. The IV model stopped production in 2012. The plane is registered to a man at an Oregon address, according to FAA records. A man by the same name was certified in 1991 as a repairman and builder of experimental aircraft and received his private pilot’s license in 2010, records show.
A plane made an emergency landing on the North bound side of I-15. The plane crashed into a vehicle that was parked on...
Posted by North County Fire Protection District on Saturday, April 2, 2016
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