Friend Hikes for Help for Air Crash Victims

A Valencia man hiked 2 1/2 hours through rugged terrain in search of help for three friends, who were injured when their small airplane crashed in the San Gabriel Mountains, authorities said Saturday.

Dean Stratton, 27, reached a house in Lake View Terrace and called authorities about 11 p.m. Friday, hours after the plane went down in the mountainous Little Tujunga Creek area of the Angeles National Forest, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Mary Landreth.

A Los Angeles County Fire Department helicopter crew spotted the wreckage shortly after midnight near Dillon’s Divide, Landreth said. A sheriff’s search and rescue team, traveling in four-wheel-drive vehicles and then on foot, reached the victims about 1 a.m.

The pilot, Michael Davis, 28, of Valencia, and the two passengers, Wesley Burnett, 30, of North Hollywood and Don Cook, 24, of Santa Clarita, were all taken by helicopter to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia.

Stratton did not require medical attention.

“I’m sore and I’m about to collapse from exhaustion, but other than that I’m fine,” he said Saturday. “I was the only one who was able to pull down into a tuck position. That’s why I think I wasn’t hurt.”

Cook broke his ankle and suffered multiple lacerations, said nursing supervisor Anne Coleman. She declined to give the condition of the other two because they had not signed a document allowing the hospital to release such information.

Stratton, who visited his injured friends Saturday, said Burnett and Davis both suffered facial cuts and broken facial bones. “They got the brunt of it, but they’ll be OK.”

Burnett, whose father owns the plane, was sitting in front next to Davis. Stratton and Cook were in back.

The single-engine Piper Cherokee took off from Whiteman Air Park in Pacoima about 8 p.m. Friday for Laughlin, Nev., but soon developed engine trouble. Within minutes, the plane crashed near 4,635-foot Mendenhall Peak in the mountains above the San Fernando Valley, Stratton said.

As the plane was falling, Davis banked sharply to avoid a rock outcropping and tried to land on a fire road, Stratton said. “We were losing altitude incredibly fast. We tried to land on the road, but the engine stalled and we just lost it.”

The plane flipped over several times and came to a rest in brush on the side of a canyon. Stratton said the impact would have been greater, but “we fell with the slope of the hill instead of against it.”

When the plane stopped, the cabin and fuselage were at a 90-degree angle. All the windows were broken and the passenger-side door was ripped off, Stratton said.

“The plane looks like a pretzel. I don’t know how we survived,” Stratton said.

Stratton pulled his friends out of the cockpit and helped them regain consciousness. When he was convinced they were safe, he left to seek help, climbing about 250 feet down a cliff until he reached a road.

He said he followed the road, which was adjacent to power lines, until he reached a house on the edge of Lake View Terrace.

“I ran like a bat out of hell. We later clocked it at 10 miles and I ran about three-quarters of it,” he said. “I did my aerobics for the next two years in that run.”

Stratton downplayed his heroic actions. “The real hero was our pilot, Michael. If it wasn’t for the way he set us down--none of us would be alive right now.”

The cause of the crash was under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, Landreth said.