Crash Landing on Freeway Investigated

Federal investigators said Monday they will attempt to determine what caused an engine failure that forced the pilot of a small plane to make a crash landing on a freeway overpass in Sun Valley, injuring himself and a passenger when the aircraft clipped a light pole and grazed a car.

The pilot and passenger were identified by Los Angeles police as Robert Gaugenmaier, 61, and his wife, Judith, 50, of Studio City. Their single-engine Cessna 182 crash-landed at 4 p.m. Sunday on the Sunland Boulevard overpass above the Golden State Freeway, police said.

The Gaugenmaiers were both at Pacifica Hospital of the Valley on Monday, suffering from back injuries and cuts and bruises. Nursing supervisor Judy Fischer said Judith Gaugenmaier’s injuries appeared to be more serious than those of her husband.

Jim Wall, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator, said his office will handle the investigation, but the cause of the accident was not known.

Authorities said the plane was heading from Sedona, Ariz., to Burbank Airport but went down shortly after Robert Gaugenmaier radioed to the airport tower and reported an emergency.

“He advised our controllers that he thought he had engine problems,” FAA spokeswoman Barbara Abels said. “He was cleared to land. Unfortunately, he came down a half-mile short of the runway.”

The plane clipped a light pole before it crashed onto the roadway, where it grazed a 1978 Cadillac Seville carrying a female driver and her two children, said Sgt. Phil Butler. They were not injured. A passing motorist with a fire extinguisher managed to douse a small oil fire that erupted in the plane’s engine area after the crash, Butler said.

Ioanna Jimenez, 33, the driver of the Cadillac that was struck by the plane, told police that she had just gotten off the Golden State Freeway and was making a left turn onto the eastbound lanes of the overpass when she saw the plane about to crash. “I looked up and saw the plane take a nose dive and burst into flames,” Jimenez said.