Small-Plane Pilot, Passenger Survive Crash, Freezing Night in Mountains

Two San Diego County residents aboard a single-engine plane that crashed into a mountainous area near Santa Ysabel were rescued early Monday after spending a night amid the wreckage in freezing temperatures.

When rescuers arrived at the crash site near Lake Henshaw in northern San Diego County shortly before 7 a.m., they found the pilot, 46-year-old Jeff Palmer of Olivenhain, trapped in the wreckage between the Cessna’s engine and fire wall, according to a spokesman for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.

His passenger, Shelley Clayton, 42, of San Diego, had been knocked unconscious inside the plane when it crashed about 9 p.m. Sunday, but awoke and flagged down a Civil Air Patrol plane shortly after dawn Monday.

The couple were taken by helicopter to Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, where Palmer was reported in serious condition Monday with two broken legs, a broken nose and burns on his chest, apparently caused by the plane’s fuel. Clayton was in fair condition with frostbite on both legs and cuts and bruises. Both were suffering from hypothermia after spending the night largely exposed to the elements in the snow-covered area, where overnight temperatures ranged from the mid-20s to low 30s.

The crash occurred about 20 minutes after the plane took off from Borrego Springs on a flight to Carlsbad. After Federal Aviation Administration personnel reported the plane missing, sheriff’s deputies searched the area for about two hours Sunday night but, hampered by the darkness and icy conditions that closed some roads, they found nothing.

When the search resumed early Monday, the Civil Air Patrol plane, following the signal from the Cessna’s emergency locater transmitter, spotted the wreckage near Loma Madera Ranch, at the south end of Lake Henshaw, about 40 miles northeast of San Diego.