MUGU ROCK : Woman Killed as Car Plunges Into Ocean

An elderly Malibu woman died early Friday when her car careened off a cliff on Pacific Coast Highway near Mugu Rock and sailed 150 feet in the air before it landed in the water, crushing her, authorities said.

It took firefighters more than an hour to extricate the body of 80-year-old Dorothy Malloy from her red Mercedes-Benz.

“There is not a place in that car that is not crumpled, wrinkled or smashed,” Point Mugu Fire Capt. Carl Friddle said. “The car hit hard.”

Although investigators had not yet determined the cause of death, Malloy apparently died instantly when the roof of the vehicle smashed her inside the car, said Mitch Breese, a spokesman for the coroner’s office.

After hitting the water, the vehicle was carried by the tide onto rocks about 75 yards from where it had gone off the road, a spokeswoman for the California Highway Patrol said.

A surfer who had stopped near Point Mugu to take a picture of the ocean spotted the vehicle and notified authorities about 9 a.m.

It was the fourth fatal accident in the last five months along a six-mile stretch south of Mugu Rock, Friddle said. All four cars plunged off the winding road into the water.

The high number of accidents along Pacific Coast Highway has led county and state officials to propose a safety awareness campaign to begin in March, a spokesman for the California Department of Transportation said.

In addition, authorities hope to install call boxes, straighten curves and post better road warnings along the mostly coastal road between Oxnard and the Los Angeles County line.