Two Killed, Woman Badly Hurt in New Year’s Eve Plane Crash
A man and a woman were killed and another woman critically injured in a New Year’s Eve crash of a single-engine airplane in the snow-covered San Gabriel Mountains, authorities said Sunday.
The plane is believed to have gone down about 5 p.m. Saturday, but a search team, hampered by snow and rain, took more than 16 hours to locate the wreckage, said Sgt. Tom Federoff of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
Authorities were alerted to the crash by signals sent by the downed plane’s emergency locater and searchers on Sunday morning found the crash site near Mt. Baldy. The two women were airlifted to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, where one of them died at 11:30 a.m., a hospital spokeswoman said.
The survivor, Jody Pierce, 25, of Santa Barbara, was in serious condition with abdominal and chest injuries and a fractured leg, nursing supervisor Judy Pruitt said.
Federoff said the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and the Civil Air Patrol assisted in the rescue operation.
The Sheriff’s Department could not provide names of the other victims or details about the flight.
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