Pilot survives east valley plane crash

A pilot was seriously injured when he was forced to crash land his small plane in Mecca, sheriff’s deputies said Monday.

Authorities were notified at 10:36 p.m. Sunday of an aircraft emergency somewhere between Box Canyon and Painted Canyon roads, north of the Salton Sea.

David Wedmore, 60, of Denver, Colorado, was found at about 11:30 p.m. in his crashed single-engine Cessna about 2.5 miles north of Box Canyon Road and about 8 miles east of Thermal’s Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport, said Riverside County Sheriff’s Sgt. John Clark. Wedmore was the plane’s sole occupant.

Sheriff’s deputies from both Riverside and San Bernardino counties tracked Wedmore down through his cell phone, from which they obtained GPS coordinates to the crash site.

Wedmore was responsive when deputies located him, but had sustained “significant head and facial injuries,” Clark said. He was taken to Desert Regional Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.

The cause of the crash remained under investigation. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board were notified of the crash, Clark said.