CAMARILLO : Couple Survive Crash-Landing

A couple who were flying their small plane from Wyoming to Camarillo to visit relatives ran out of gas Friday, forcing them to make a crash-landing in a strawberry field two miles short of Camarillo Airport.

Pilot Albert Seamands, 63, of Lander, Wyo., suffered cuts on his face and chin but did not require medical treatment after the crash in a field along the 3100 block of Rose Avenue in El Rio.

Seamands’ wife, Janet, 60, was taken to St. John’s Regional Medical Center for treatment, but a hospital spokesman said she suffered only minor bruises and lacerations and was expected to be released soon.

Camarillo resident Sharon Harris, who is married to Janet Seamands’ brother, met her brother-in-law Albert at the crash site.

Stepping over the raised beds of strawberries, Harris helped Seamands carry luggage and other belongings off the single-engine, blue-and-white Rockwell Aero Commander plane.

Harris said Seamands had called her from the scene shortly after the crash. “He just said he’d just crashed into strawberry fields,� Harris said. “I was shocked. I thought he was teasing.�

Seamands’ plane was upright but its right wing was nearly ripped off and bent upward. Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Dan Place said the biggest damage to the plane might have occurred when it ran into the raised strawberry beds.

The pilot had evidently tried to align the plane’s landing gear with the grooves between the strawberry beds, not realizing the field’s furrows change direction, Place said.