Pilot Spotted Climbing Steep Canyon

The pilot of a plane that went down Thursday and started a fire climbed up a steep hill near Soledad to get help, according the San Jose Mercury News. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection battalion chief Mark Kendall said it was "miraculous" that 40-year-old Andy Klein of King City walked away from the plane that went down above Soledad Mission.

Klein flew an Air Tractor AT-401 (file photo, above) into a canyon and could not maneuver out, crashing about 10:25 a.m. some 40 miles southeast of Monterey, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor of the FAA office in Los Angeles.

The pilot was alone in the plane that was seeding a hillside when it went in and started a quarter-acre brush fire that officials quickly contained, Klein suffered second-and third-degree burns, according to Monterey County sheriff's deputies. An aerial survey with a fire helicopter sent to the scene found the wreckage of Klein's single engine plane, then saw Klein on a steep slope of the canyon.

Klein was airlifted to an ambulance, and then flown to a San Jose hospital.

FMI: www.faa.gov