Hang Glider Mishap Ignites Small Brushfire on Bluffs

REMAINS-A burned-out engine block, twisted metal frame and singed wooden propeller mark the site where a motorized hang glider crashed and ignited just west of Malibu Bluffs Park Wednesday. The ensuing brushfire was putout quickly by local crews. The pilot was transported to an area medical facility. MSN/Hans Laetz

• Lack of Wind Enables Firefighters to Quickly Bring Blaze under Control •

By Hans Laetz

A gas-powered ultralight’s engine, worn by its pilot like a backpack, may have caught fire in the air moments before it crashed into tinder-dry brush just west of Malibu Bluffs Park on Wednesday, sparking a half-acre fire.
The pilot suffered second-degree burns to his back and legs, and was taken to UCLA Santa Monica Hospital by ground ambulance. Fire paramedics said they do not believe the man’s burns to be life threatening, and have not released his name.
The crash sparked a small fire in two-foot-high brush that has sprouted on the mesa in the months since the Jan. 9, 2007 Malibu Road fire, which damaged or destroyed 11 houses along the beachfront. A lack of wind kept the fire from spreading quickly like the earlier one, which burned through brush from Pacific Coast Highway to the beach in 15 minutes.
More than 40 firefighters and inmate camp crew workers had the small blaze extinguished a short time after the 11:10 a.m. crash, county firefighters said.
The fire scene was small, and water-dropping helicopters appeared to have arrested the fire in its earliest stages. Fire crews had no problems running water lines over a quarter-mile of brush from Pacific Coast Highway.
In the center of the charred brush sat twisted aluminum tubing and the charred, backpack-sized engine, its propeller blackened and flaking apart.
Early reports from TV helicopter crews said power lines had been hit, but county firefighters said the nearest utility lines were below the bluffs on Malibu Road, and there was no indication of any having been snagged.
The aircraft involved was an unlicensed, motorized airfoil similar to a parachute. Several such aircraft, called motorized hang gliders, are frequently seen being launched from the bluffs west of the Michael Landon Recreation Center, and flown along the coast.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board does not investigate unlicensed aircraft crashes, and spokesman Ian Gregor said this crash apparently involved such an unlicensed crash.
Some residents of Malibu Road, below the 2007 fire area, have accused the Mountain Conservation Resources Agency, which owns the land, of endangering people and property by failing to clear weeds and non-native shrubs that cover much of the bluffs.
Wednesday’s fire occurred in dry weeds sprouted since the 2007 blaze, which originated through unknown causes in a grove of dead trees next to PCH at Malibu Canyon Road. Burned charcoal trunks also remain at that site.
The January Malibu Road fire, which occurred in strong Santa Ana winds, was the first of three major brushfires that hit Malibu last year. The October Canyon Fire claimed six homes and two businesses, and November’s Corral Fire destroyed 55 houses.