4 Fountain Valley Residents Hurt When Plane Crash-Lands

Four Fountain Valley residents suffered minor injuries Thursday night when their small rented plane ran out of fuel near Victorville and crash-landed in the desert.

“There are experiences in life that you don’t need to have and this is one of them,” passenger Gene Starr, 60, said Friday afternoon from his wife’s bedside at Victor Valley Community Hospital. “We’re happy to be alive.”

Starr, principal at Los Coyotes Elementary School in La Palma, was treated at the Victorville hospital Thursday night for a cut over his left eye. His wife, Barbara, 45, was admitted with a concussion and a back injury and reported in stable condition Friday.

Starr’s daughter, Summer, 8, was also treated at the hospital Thursday night for a back injury. Pilot Anita Baroldi, 41, was treated for minor cuts.

Starr said he had hired Baroldi, a family friend, to take him and his family from John Wayne Airport to a relative’s funeral in Ogden, Utah, on Thursday. But strong head winds slowed their flight and they missed the burial service.

On their return, their single-engine Piper Dakota suddenly “began coughing and sputtering” over the desert near Victorville, Starr said, and Baroldi radioed air traffic controllers that she was low on fuel.

Jim Bryant, a spokesman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, said Baroldi ran out of fuel and crash-landed in the desert near the small community of Muscatel.

The plane’s left wing sheared off on impact and the fuselage skidded 129 feet, Bryant said. The craft narrowly missed a couple of power poles. Baroldi and Gene Starr walked away from the wreckage.

Starr called it “miraculous” that the plane didn’t hit the power poles.

He said that moments after the crash, a nurse, sheriff’s deputies and other emergency-preparedness workers reached the scene with blankets and administered first aid.

Baroldi could not be reached for comment Friday, but according to Bryant, she told sheriff’s deputies that she was “turned away from Ontario International Airport due to heavy traffic” when she first told air-traffic controllers that she was low on fuel.

But Federal Aviation Administration officials said that that account is incorrect. After reviewing tape-recorded transmissions Friday, FAA spokeswoman Elly Brekke said officials had determined that a Palmdale controller gave Baroldi clearance to land at Ontario when she first reported that her plane was in trouble.

But 20 minutes later, at 8:24 p.m. Thursday, Baroldi called back, said she was “experiencing fuel failure” and was given permission to land at nearby Hesperia Airport just south of Victorville, Brekke said.

Baroldi then complained that she could not see the small desert airport, Brekke said. Controllers were “working closely” with Baroldi, advising her that she had just flown past the airport, when her transmissions stopped, apparently when her plane crashed, Brekke said.