Two Rescued After Plane Crash

Pilot Dariush Javadi checked his flight instruments, charts and fuel level before he took off, but what he should have reviewed was his wardrobe.

Javadi and his nephew, both of Orange, were airlifted to safety Thursday after a chilly night huddled in a Cessna 152 that crashed into a mountain.

“I usually don’t wear closed shoes when I’m not working,” said Javadi, 42, an airline mechanic. “Maybe I’ll take a pair of socks along next time.”

Javadi credits the thick brush and soft soil of Santiago Peak for saving his life and that of his nephew, Nima Javadi, a flight instructor.

“The trees helped, and the ground was full of dried leaves and tree bark, and it formed like a cushion,” Javadi said.

“If it had been just rocks on the ground, it wouldn’t have been pretty.”

Javadi, who took up flying two years ago, said there were two impacts--the first slowed the aircraft by bending a wing. It then came to rest on a hill.

When daylight broke, Javadi discovered the aircraft was about 20 feet from a 60-foot plunge down a cliff.

“I’m not a religious person, but maybe an angel was looking out for us,” he said.

Javadi got into trouble about 25 minutes after taking off from Long Beach Municipal Airport.

He was on his way to Temecula to practice nighttime landings, and though the sky was clear, Javadi said, he became disoriented.

“I think I lost track of where we were in relation to our ground reference,” said Javadi, who owns the plane. “Normally, I don’t make mistakes, but I also know I’m not beyond it.”

Javadi asked his nephew, who was reclining in his seat, if he could help clarify their position. Nima Javadi fumbled frantically through flight charts. Seconds later, both men saw the treetops.

“My concern was to slow down, so I powered down and put the nose back,” Javadi said. “When we hit the hillside, we were probably doing about 50 knots,” or about 46 mph.

Once the men made sure the plane would not shift and there were no fuel leaks, they notified the control tower of their position: 3,000 elevation and about eight miles west of Interstate 15 near Indian Truck Trail Road.

Because they were in the Cleveland National Forest, they decided to stay overnight inside the plane.

“We didn’t know where we were going,” said Nima Javadi, 25. “And we didn’t know what kind of animals we’d find out there.”

Wearing sandals, jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, Dariush Javadi stuffed his feet in a torn seat cushion. His nephew was wearing khakis, a long-sleeved shirt and boots, so he gave his uncle his flight gloves.

“It also helped that the plane was on a 30-degree angle and I was pressed against my nephew’s body,” Javadi said. “We kept each other warm.”

After keeping in contact with authorities throughout the sleepless night, the men were airlifted to Inland Valley Regional Medical Center in Wildomar about 8:30 a.m.

Personnel from the U.S. Forest Service, the California Department of Forestry and the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department search and rescue team joined in the rescue.

Hours after his ordeal had ended, Javadi felt lucky to be talking about it on his nephew’s cell phone.

“It feels like I’ve hit the lottery,” he said. “Not too many people get a chance to talk about something like this. It’s amazing.”