San Diego

A 72-year-old retired U.S. Air Force colonel and his disabled daughter were killed Wednesday when their car, traveling at 70 m.p.h., smashed into the shovel of a backhoe being pulled by a dump truck on Interstate 15, the California Highway Patrol said.

The driver, Philip Anthony Gugliotta, and his daughter, Mary, 34, were traveling north on the freeway near Friars Road about 10 a.m. when, according to a CHP spokeswoman, they apparently struck the vehicle without any effort to stop.

“Apparently there was no evidence of brake or skid marks,” the CHP spokeswoman said.

The dump truck was in the right lane about 25 m.p.h., the CHP spokeswoman said. Gugliotta, however, apparently did try to change lanes.

Larry Stewart, a spokesman for the San Diego Fire Department, said that the backhoe’s shovel acted “like a knife,” ripping off the hood of the car and smashing the front window. Gugliotta was taken to Sharp Memorial Hospital, where he died at 10:40 a.m., according to a coroner’s report. His daughter died at the scene.

A full autopsy report will be announced today, but external examinations indicate that both died of massive head injuries, a coroner’s deputy said.

Gugliotta lived in the 7200 block of Navajo Road, a coroner’s deputy said.