Mt. Baldy plane crash turned into book

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I was unfamiliar with the story of Norman Ollestad until an e-mail from tireless reader Don J. about Ollestad's new memoir, "Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival." The pertinent details:

A Cessna 172 crashed into Ontario Peak in the San Gabriel Mountains on Feb. 19, 1979. There were four passengers: a pilot, a young woman, an attorney and his 11-year-old son. The pilot and the father were killed and the young woman died hours later, leaving the boy, Ollestad, to make his way down the mountain alone.

In the freezing cold, he slid down the hill on his pants, holding a stick in his fractured hands to brake his descent. Ten hours after the crash, he made it to Mt. Baldy Village and was taken to a hospital, bloody and bruised but alive. Whoa.

The book has already been optioned by Warner Bros. for a movie. Here's the Amazon link for the book.

1 Comments

Bob House said:

More Powerful Than Oprah! After one mention on the David Allen Blog, "Crazy for the Storm" is featured in the 7/5/09 NY Times Book Review at the top of the "Inside the List" column, next to the Best Seller Lists.

[Proving that my powers of literary boosterdom are not foolproof, "Moby-Dick," meanwhile, was nowhere to be found on Newsweek's Top 100 Books list: http://www.newsweek.com/id/204478 -- DA]

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A roundup of news, history, food, travel and cultural items from around the Inland Valley.

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A journalist for more than two decades, David Allen has been writing a column for the Daily Bulletin since 1997 and blogging since 2007.
He lives in Claremont.
E-mail David here or read columns here.

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This page contains a single entry by David Allen published on June 8, 2009 5:54 AM.

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