Ultralight crash
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December 12, 1984 |
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By Jim Fairchild
The weather on this particular Wednesday presented huge cloud formations over and near all the mountains in sight. In the morning I was driving about the vicinity of Riverside observing the clouds and wind patterns, thinking of past missions to locate and pick up after plane crashes; the present conditions seemed ominous.
At about 4 p.m. I was about to
finish my day's work when the pager sounded and
said to call Al Andrews, our Coordinator. He gave
directions to the scene of an airplane crash,
which had been mentioned in the pager alert. By
sundown I was at the scene, talking to Sgt.
Shoemaker of the Sheriff's Office and Duane
Twomley, of California Department of Forestry.
They pointed out the crash site, only a third of
a mile east of the road in rolling hills. The
deputy and coroner on the scene had radioed to
say they needed bolt cutters to remove the pilot,
Barry Zielinski, age 39, of Huntington Beach,
from his crushed ultralight, propeller-driven
craft. Since I just happen to carry a nice bolt
cutter in my truck, I was soon hiking along.
First, I came to a wing that had separated from
the plane, then a parachute with sling strung out
from it, then the craft. But by now the men on
the scene had removed the pilot, put him in a
bag, and were carrying him down the hill to the
two official cars at the bottom. Bernie McIlvoy
and Mel Krug came along and went to inspect the
wreckage. Kevin Walker and Ray Hussey arrived in
Kevin's jeep, primarily because the cars were not
going to be able to ascend the very steep
"road" they had descended. Kevin and
the rest of us assisted in the "rescue"
of the cars, and triumphantly returned to base on
the paved road.
The cause of the crash is unknown to us, and we are saddened to see a young life so abruptly terminated by falling out of the sky.