Motorcyclist Who Died In Pine Valley Crash ID'd

SAN DIEGO, CA — Authorities have released the name of a 55-year-old East Coast man who was killed last weekend in a motorcycle crash in the eastern San Diego County highlands.

Mitchell Van Linge of Simpsonville, South Carolina, lost control of the Ducati two-wheeler he was riding on Sunrise Highway in Pine Valley shortly before 1:30 p.m. Sunday, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office and California Highway Patrol.

The southbound motorcycle veered off a curving stretch of the roadway about 1 1/2 miles north of Old Highway 80 and struck a guardrail, ejecting Van Linge and sending him tumbling roughly 100 feet down an embankment, CHP public-affairs Officer Jared Grieshaber said.

Paramedics airlifted Van Linge to Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego, where he was pronounced dead.

— City News Service