Survivor of Plane Crash in Tehachapi Walks to Help

A San Diego area woman, injured in a single-engine plane crash in the Tehachapi Mountains Friday that killed the pilot, was able to find her way down to Interstate 5 and direct searchers to the wreckage Saturday morning, authorities said.

Susan Crook, 25, suffered facial lacerations and a fractured right arm in the crash, a nursing supervisor at Mercy Hospital in Bakersfield said. She was listed in fair condition Saturday night.

The unidentified male pilot of the plane died in the crash, said Sgt. Bill Davis of the Kern County Sheriff’s Department. It was not known whether he also was from the San Diego area.

The plane crashed sometime Friday afternoon in bad weather when the pilot apparently had trouble negotiating the Tejon Pass after climbing to avoid some wires, Davis said. The pass is about 70 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

“He apparently was flying low so he could use Interstate 5 north as a guide through the clouds and fog,” Davis said. “They had just climbed to get away from some wires and apparently they couldn’t see the crest of a mountaintop through the fog. They flew right into the mountain, and she was ejected and somehow survived.”

Crook told authorities she took a thermal blanket that had been aboard the plane and began walking down the mountain to try and reach the highway, Davis said. She was spotted by a trucker on Interstate 5 about 7:50 a.m. Saturday.

The plane was flying from Palomar Airport in Carlsbad to Squaw Valley in the Sierras east of Fresno, the Associated Press reported.