San Jose Mercury - 19:02 30 Jan 2002
Small plane crash lands at San Diego Marine base
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A small private plane crashed Wednesday while trying to land at a Marine Corps base, killing one person and injuring another.
The experimental plane, registered in Alberta, Canada, apparently ran out of fuel while flying over the La Jolla area of San Diego and requested permission to land at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, said Lt. Joshua Rushing, a spokesman for the base.
It crashed short of a runway at the base about 40 minutes after taking off from Montgomery Field in San Diego, authorities said.
The injured victim, a 44-year-old man, was listed in critical condition at Scripps Memorial Hospital in San Diego.
The names of the victims were not immediately available.
The crash occurred about 45 minutes before the scheduled start of a memorial at the San Diego base for two Marines who were killed in a Jan. 20 helicopter crash in Afghanistan. The crash site was not visible from where mourners gathered.
Earlier this month, seven other Marines based at Miramar died when their KC-130 fuel transport plane crashed in Pakistan.
Writing this twenty five miles from unit 2.