Fiery Eastvale crash snarls 15 Freeway traffic

MIRA LOMA >> A fiery crash, apparently caused by a speeding truck, snarled traffic on the 15 Freeway in Eastvaleon Saturday, CHP officers said.

The crash was reported at 11:15 a.m. on the south side of the 15, approaching the 60 Freeway interchange.

A U-Haul truck with a trailer sideswiped a car and then went into the center median off the southbound lanes of the 15, the California Highway Patrol website said.

The truck was fully engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived, but everyone inside was able to get out without injury.

The fire didn’t spread beyond the truck and nobody was injured, a Riverside County Fire Department report said.

Traffic was backed up and railroad service was stopped in the area because the crash happened near the tracks.

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Families of Orland bus crash victims unveil memorial plaque on 1 year anniversary

The families of an engaged couple who were killed in the fiery crash of a bus carrying dozens of Los Angeles-area high school students to Humboldt State University for a campus tour unveiled a plaque Friday in conjunction with the one-year anniversary of the accident.

Michael Myvett and Mattison Haywood were chaperones aboard the bus that had 44 students aboard, along with one other chaperone and the driver.

The bus was being driven north on Interstate 5 in Orland on April 10, 2014, when it was struck by a southbound FedEx big rig whose driver veered off the freeway and crossed a lengthy grass median. The truck struck a Nissan Altima before plowing into the tour bus, which burst into flames.

Ten people died, including the drivers of both vehicles and five students.

The families of Myvett and Haywood unveiled a plaque honoring all of the crash victims during a news conference at Union Station’s Patsaouras Transit Plaza.

“We have had a year of tears, now we need to remember their joy,” said Debra Loyd, who raised Myvett.

The families have asked the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to install the plaque at the bus plaza. They also plan to make duplicate plaques available to each of the high schools that had a student who died in the crash, along with the city of Orland and Humboldt State University, where Myvett earned undergraduate and master’s degrees.

Myvett, who was a therapist for autistic children, and Haywood got engaged in Paris in December 2013.

The other victims of the crash were:

• Denise Gomez and Ismael Jimenez, the reigning homecoming queen and king at Animo Charter High School in Inglewood;

• Jennifer Bonilla, an honor student at Los Angeles Dorsey High School who recently had won a college scholarship and was considered a campus leader by school administrators;

• Adrian Castro, a popular El Monte High School football player who fellow students referred to as a positive role model;

• Marisa Serrato, a church-going student at Norte Vista High School in Riverside, and whose identical twin, Marisol, made the trip on a different bus and was not injured;

• bus driver Talalelei Lealao-Taiao;

• chaperone Arthur Arzola, 26, of Rancho Cucamonga, who was a college recruiter helping to lead the excursion to Humboldt State; and

• FedEx truck driver Tim Evans, 32, a lifelong resident of the Sacramento area who had married his high school sweetheart, fathered two daughters and helped coach their soccer and softball teams.

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Orange County motorcycle deputy injured in Diamond Bar crash

DIAMOND BAR – An Orange County Sheriff’s Department motorcycle deputy was injured today in a crash in Diamond Bar, authorities said.

The crash occurred about 5:50 a.m. on the southbound Orange (57) Freeway near Diamond Bar Boulevard, the California Highway Patrol reported.

The deputy was taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries that were not believed life-threatening, said Orange County sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Hallock. Three southbound freeway lanes were blocked while an investigation was conducted into the circumstances of the crash.

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Illinois State athletic staffers among 7 dead in plane crash

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. >> A private plane returning from the NCAA basketball tournament in Indianapolis crashed in a central Illinois field on Tuesday, killing all seven people on board, including Illinois State University’s associate head basketball coach and a deputy athletics director.

Rescue personnel found no survivors at the site near the city of Bloomington, and a coroner pronounced the seven occupants dead, McLean County Sheriff Jon Sandage said at a news conference.

The journey to Monday night’s championship game began with a phone call. Scott Bittner, a 42-year-old business owner, got a call from a friend asking if he wanted to go to the game.

“He said he had an extra ticket and asked him to go,” said Terry Wertz, who worked alongside Bittner at a meat processing plant. Wertz said that when Bittner hung up the phone he was “really excited.”

They took off for the game in a plane that Bittner used regularly for business trips. It was not clear exactly how they were connected with the others on board, but local broadcasters talked about the group as if many of them were well acquainted with one another. Bittner was one of the seven killed.

Authorities were withholding official identification of victims pending notification of family.

But Illinois State University President Larry Dietz confirmed in an email to students, faculty and staff that associate head basketball coach Torrey Ward and Aaron Leetch, the athletic department’s deputy director for external relations, were killed in the early-morning crash. The email was released to media.

“Words cannot fully express the grief that is felt in the wake of such a tragedy,” Dietz wrote, adding that both men were well-respected and much-loved in the athletics department. “We move between shock and profound sadness.”

Several players and staff carried through with an optional practice Tuesday afternoon at Redbird Arena. A spokesman said they would not make players or coaches available for comment.

The Cessna 414 twin-engine aircraft took off from Indianapolis and crashed just short of the Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington after midnight, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The National Transportation Safety Board was investigating, but there was no initial word on the cause of the crash. News photos from near the scene showed dense fog.

The airport was open and all systems, including its runway lighting, were functioning, though the tower had closed several hours earlier and handed responsibility to an air traffic control facility in Peoria.

“That is not an anomaly; that’s a very common thing at airports across the country,” airport Director Carl Olson told reporters at the news conference.

Radar contact was lost moments before the crash and a search was launched when the pilot failed to close out his flight plan. It took about three hours to find the wreckage.

Officials said they would release more details by late afternoon.

Jason Jones, a former basketball and baseball player for Illinois Wesleyan University who worked at Wells Fargo Advisors, also died, said his wife, Lyndsey Jones.

“He loved his children and his family more than anything in the world, wonderful man. That’s really all I can say right now,” she said.

The Associated Press was not able to confirm the identities of the other three people on board.

Bittner’s father-in-law, Scott Barrows, said he had a regular and experienced pilot for the 10-seater aircraft.

“(They) went to the NCAA game last night and they were flying back and I guess the weather was bad in central Illinois. It was foggy,” Barrows told the Chicago Tribune. “They were supposed to land around midnight. My daughter was called at 4 a.m. … It has been confirmed they are dead.”

A woman who answered a phone listing for Scott Bittner said she was a family friend and refused to comment beyond asking for privacy.

Bittner lived with his wife and two children in Towanda, a small village just outside Bloomington, his co-worker Wertz told the AP. He owned a meat processing plant in Eureka, Illinois, carrying on the family’s line of work after his dad established another plant in the small city of Chenoa, where Bittner grew up.

“He always told me that he wasn’t my boss, that I didn’t work for him, I worked with him,” said Wertz, who has worked at Bittner’s Meat Co. for 15 years.

“He was awful good to me and my family,” Wertz said through tears. “If I needed anything, he’d do anything for you.”

The plant butchers livestock, including beef, pork, lambs and goats.

Bittner had traveled to Indianapolis for the NCAA tournament using his dad’s plane, which he primarily used for business trips, Wertz said.

The aircraft was registered to Make it Happen Aviation LLC of Towanda, Illinois.

———

Keyser reported from Chicago. Associated Press writer Don Babwin contributed to this report from Chicago.

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Chino officer slightly hurt in crash during pursuit

A Chino police officer was slightly injured in a crash during a pursuit with a fleeing vehicle Tuesday morning.

A 43-year-old Chino woman was arrested in connection to the chase.

Just after 1:30 a.m., officers tried to pull over a car for vehicle code violations in the northwest portion of the city, according to Monica Gutierrez, spokeswoman for Chino.

The driver, later identified as Jacqueline Huey, led officers on a chase into Ontario, Gutierrez said.

During the pursuit, a Chino police officer was involved in a collision at the intersection of Cedar and Euclid avenues, she said. He was slighlty injured in the crash.

The pursuit was discontinued, and Ontario police officers were called to help find the fleeing vehicle.

Ontario police officers later found the vehicle Huey was allegedly driving abandoned near the intersection of Francis and Boulder avenues, she said.

Through an investigation, Chino officers went to a home in the 5400 block of Choctaw in Chino and found Huey inside. She was subsequently arrested on suspicion of evading officers and was booked at the West Valley Detention Center and is being held in lieu $100,000 bail.

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Pomona couple arrested following pursuit, crash

POMONA >> A Pomona couple was arrested following a police pursuit and crash that injured an innocent driver.

David Macias, 42, and Jocelyn Sanchez, 23, both of Pomona, were booked into the Pomona Jail Thursday afternoon, according to a police statement.

Shortly before 5 p.m., officers from Pomona Police Department’s Major Crimes Task Force noticed a vehicle near White Avenue and 9th Street had committed at least two traffic violations, officials said. When officers tried to stop the vehicle, the driver sped off.

During the pursuit, the front passenger, later identified as Sanchez, jumped out of the moving vehicle. A short time after sheleft the vehicle, the driver, Macias, crashed into a vehicle at the intersection of Park Avenue and 11th Street. Macias and the other motorist suffered minor injuries, police officials said.

Macias was arrested and police found he was in possession of a .38 special handgun and drugs. Sanchez was also apprehended and investigators learned she was a parolee at large.

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Yasiel Puig leaves Dodgers game after collision with Howie Kendrick

ANAHEIM, Calif. — L.A. Dodgers right fielder Yasiel Puig was removed from a spring training game Thursday night against the Angels as a precaution following a violent collision with second baseman Howie Kendrick.

The play occurred in the fifth inning while Puig and his new teammate were chasing a shallow fly by Mike Trout that fell for a leadoff triple.

• PHOTOS: Tout homers, Puig leave game, Kendrick returns as Angels win

Kendrick, who spent his first nine big league seasons playing second base for the Angels before they traded him to the Dodgers in December, peeled off when he heard Puig call for the ball at the last instant — but could not avoid hitting him.

“There hasn’t been any trouble out there all spring. It was just one of those things,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. “I don’t know if Yasiel didn’t think he could call it early enough. I mean, you can’t call for it until you know you’ve got it, so everybody keeps coming until the end. And obviously with him calling it late, Howie’s going to keep going and he’s going to have trouble stopping.”

Puig went down and was tended to by a trainer before walking off the field under his own power.

“I’m glad everybody’s OK. That’s the main thing,” Mattingly said. “It looked like Howie got him in the neck or the throat with his shoulder. Howie didn’t hear anything until the last second. The infielder’s going to keep going until he hears something, and that’s basically what Howie did. That’s when it gets dangerous.”

Puig was replaced in right field by Chris Heisey. Trout scored moments later on Albert Pujols’ sacrifice fly, which gave the Angels a two-run lead in their 3-2 victory.

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Crash on 10 Freeway in Ontario causes more than 5-mile back up

ONTARIO >> Traffic was backed up for about seven miles following a multi-vehicle crash that also involved a tractor trailer tossed debris across all lanes of the westbound 10 Freeway near Etiwanda Avenue early this morning.

Traffic was reportedly backed up to Bloomington. A SigAlert was issued as crews worked to clear the scene and the lanes of traffic.

The crash was reported just before 6 a.m., according to California Highway Patrol incident logs.

At least three vehicles, including the tractor trailer were involved, and the crash initially blocked all lanes due to debris being strewn across the freeway, according to CHP logs.

Crash on 10 Freeway in Ontario causes more than 5-mile back up Read More »

Sheriff’s sergeant saves pinned driver from burning car

SAN BERNARDINO >> A sheriff’s sergeant helped save a man’s life when the driver became trapped inside his burning car after a crash early Tuesday morning.

San Bernardino County sheriff’s central station Sgt. Fred Parrish was on his way to a call in Devore around 3 a.m. when he spotted a crash on the northbound 215 Freeway near Kendall Avenue, according to a statement.

It appeared a passenger car had collided with a dirt hauler causing a fire to ignite in the car’s engine compartment, officials said.

The driver, and sole occupant of the passenger car was pinned under the dashboard and was drifting in and out of consciousness, according to a sheriff’s statement.

Parrish used his patrol car’s fire extinguisher to put the fire out. He also created an airway into the cab allowing the victim fresh air, officials said.

Fire personnel had to use the jaws of life to pull the man from the wreckage. The man was taken to a hospital but his condition is unknown.

The crash is under investigation.

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