From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Bob Carlson, and this is Unfictional.

Unfictional is KCRW's program of stories and original documentaries.

It's a part of KCRW's independent production. of plane crashed onto a steep icy slope high in the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles,

ultimately leaving three people dead.

The only survivor was an 11-year-old boy named Norman Olstead.

With no one around to help, young Norman had to make his way down the mountain

and somehow find rescue.

Norman's father was a former FBI agent and a lawyer and his career let him travel the world and surf and ski, but he was also intense and sometimes reckless with the demands he put on his young son to live a life of gritty

adventure and extremes.

Norman did become a young ski champion, but he was also a normal 11-year-old kid who mostly wanted to do his own thing on his own time,

and he resented the pressure from his father.

But it's the same for most of us.

The important things we learn from our parents don't always come into focus until much later in life.

For Norman Olstead, that understanding started to kick in on that February day just after sunrise, a stormy sky over Ontario Peak.

It's an episode called falling.

From KCRW.com, it's unfictional.

My father woke us up probably 5.36 o'clock in the morning.

So it was my father, his girlfriend Sandra,

and myself, and we drove to Santa Monica Airport.

It was cloudy and kind of a gloomy day.

My father asked the pilot if it was okay to fly.

And he said, no problem, should be a smooth easy flight.

...