The body of a man was found inside a vehicle that crashed Thursday night about 250 feet down the side of Malibu Canyon Road.
He was identified as Oscar Alvarez of La Canada Flintridge, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office. He died on his 35th birthday.
The difficult search operation in rugged, steep terrain led authorities to what appeared to be a blue BMW, which tumbled about 250 feet down the cliff and landed next to a rusted out vehicle that was involved in a much earlier crash on the winding road around 7 p.m.
A team of about eight scaled down the hillside to cut the man's body from the crumpled vehicle Friday.
"They brought a lot of gear over the side," said David Katz, of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. "It's extremely hot over the side, to they're contending, not only with the heat, but with very, very dangerous terrain."
A helicopter crew airlifted Alvarez's remains and recovery personnel from the canyon.
"The terrain was very loose and hard to stand up," said Stephen Marshall with the LA County Sheriff's Department's Search and Rescue Team. "The car was moving so we had to tie the car down before we could do anything."
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Authorities were notified about the crash by the vehicle's post-crash alert system through the Sirius XM satellite radio service.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
