Message posted by Norio on June 16, 2006 at 12:33:11 PST:
We all have been following on this tragic news of the death of Mr. Mike Dorheim. I was checking out a few items on his death and I came across this. It seems to include the Los Angeles Police Department's comments, so I am wondering if there is anything substantial at all to this item: >From the 101, it was a quick drive to his home in nearby Westlake. But Beyond the mystery of why Dornheim's car crashed on a road he had no
Michael A. Dornheim, who spent 22 years covering the super-secret
multi-billion-dollar aerospace industry in California, vanished on June
3 after having dinner with friends.
On Monday, the journalist was found dead at the bottom of a ravine
inside his crushed Honda Accord. Police had been searching for Dornheim
since his mysterious disappearance a week earlier. Dornheim met friends
at the Saddle Peak Lodge the night of June 3, a rustic restaurant in
the mountains above Malibu.
"A friend said that Mr. Dornheim was planning to take the back road
home, Cold Canyon to Mulholland Highway to the 101 Freeway," the Los
Angeles Police Department announced on its website last week.
within minutes of leaving the restaurant, his car plunged over a cliff
and crashed 500 feet below -- off the winding Piuma Road, which means
Dornheim's car was going in exactly the wrong direction, into Carbon
Canyon toward Malibu Beach -- than the route he'd announced to his
friends moments earlier.
intention of driving on, police are baffled by the crash itself.
California Highway Patrol Officer Leland Tong said he and his fellow
officers were "scratching their heads" over how the editor's car got in
the ravine at all.
"He navigated the turns just fine, and then, in a straightaway, for
whatever reason, he went off the cliff," Tang told the Los Angeles
Times.
"Not a rock was disturbed. Not even the brush was disturbed."
As for how the crash scene was missed for more than a week -- a
helicopter pilot finally spotted the Honda on Monday -- the CHP says
there was nothing to indicate a car had gone off the road beyond "a
slight rubber scuff mark on one of the guardrails," the Times reported.
Carbon Canyon winds through the rugged Santa Monica Mountains, but it's
also a busy road lined with the multi-million-dollar estates of
Hollywood celebrities.
Dornheim's Honda is jammed so tight at the bottom of the ravine that
cops are just going to leave it there; they say it's too heavy for
their helicopter to lift it out.
Billion-Dollar Secrets
Michael Dornheim, 51, was the acclaimed West Coast editor of Aviation
Week, the industry's bible.
His last cover story for the aerospace journal was a June 5 article on
the Pentagon's "lunatic fringe" technology unit, DARPA, and its new
Orbital Express space mission. The roving robotic spacecraft will
reportedly repair and refuel Defense Department satellites while in
orbit.
In recent years, Dornheim has covered DARPA taking over the X-37 space
plane program from NASA and the remarkable story of Burt Rutan's
SpaceShip One. He even traveled with the UFO hunters outside Area 51 in
Nevada.
An engineer and private pilot, Dornheim used his expertise and skills
to get outrageous scoops, such as the time he rented a single-engine
plane in order to photograph the Stealth Bomber from angles the
Pentagon attempted to block at the B-2's limited unveiling for
aerospace reporters in 1988.
"Dornheim, who served as the magazine's senior engineering editor, was
renowned for the depth of technical understanding his articles
displayed on aeronautics, propulsion, avionics, systems engineering and
safety," Aviation Week & Space Technology reported in Dornheim's
obituary. "In addition to his work for the magazine, he often was
called on to explain developments in aviation and space on television."
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