2 Luck Out in Crash-Landing : Fortune: Pilot and mechanic walk away with just cuts and bruises after small craft hits parking lot, smashing through fences at race track.

A pilot and an airplane mechanic beat the odds at Santa Anita on Thursday when they walked away from their single-engine plane after it crash-landed in the racetrack’s parking lot, smashing through three fences and landing nose-down in a drainage ditch.

Pilot Devon Falco, 25, of Sherman Oaks and passenger Douglas Postal, 28, of Sepulveda were treated at nearby Arcadia Methodist Hospital for cuts and bruises.

Witnesses said the Piper Turbo Arrow was going about 40 m.p.h. when it hit the ground at 9:25 a.m. Had the plane touched down an hour later, the lot would have been filled with parked cars and people arriving for the 12:30 post time. And if the fences hadn’t slowed it, the craft might have smashed against the wall of a drainage channel that crosses the lot. Posts of the last fence clipped the wings just eight inches from the gas tanks.

Track painters Daniel Nua and Miles Williamsz had to step through puddles of fuel after they leaped into the 12-foot-deep ditch to help the dazed men from the cockpit.

Within minutes of the crash, the Arcadia Fire Department was at the scene, spreading fire-retardant chemicals and ending any danger to arriving race patrons. The department was en route before getting a call because engineer Jim Devlin had seen the plane pass overhead with its engine sputtering.

“It was going low and slow, which was what brought it to my attention,” Devlin said. “We figured he was trying to set down in the parking lot.”

The engine had died by the time Williamsz saw it glide into the lot and smash through the fence he had been painting. “If he hadn’t gone through the chain-link fences, he would have wiped out against the wall” of the ditch, the painter said.

A lot attendant with a sense of humor tagged the plane for parking illegally.

Neither pilot nor passenger would comment on the crash, but they told police that the engine failed for unknown reasons about 20 minutes after takeoff from Burbank Airport. Monte Wolfe, who owns the plane with his brother, said the two men were flying the plane to Rialto for painting and upholstery work.

Wolfe said the $50,000 plane was a total loss. “It had a brand-new engine put in it two weeks ago, “ he said. “The mechanic who put it in was on the plane.”

A helicopter, which was accompanying the plane to ferry the pilot and mechanic back to Burbank, touched down safely in the lot seconds after the plane crash-landed, Wolfe said.

Wolfe, who lives six blocks from the track, drove to the site after being called by the National Transportation Safety Board. “I was watching the war on the TV,” he said, “watching the planes take off, wondering if some or all of them would not get back, not knowing mine was on the ground.”