OCEANSIDE – Maria Marshall was nearly home Monday when she felt a tremendous jolt from behind.

The windows shattered as her SUV was pushed into the center divide of state Route 78 and then back to the right shoulder.

It wasn't until she came to a stop that she saw the cause of the crash.

To her disbelief, the wreckage of a small plane was sitting on the freeway next to her.

“I couldn't process what was happening,” said Marshall, 56, as she nursed her scrapes and bruises at her Oceanside home yesterday. “I'm not sure I was conscious the whole time. It happened so fast.”

The pilot, Ramon Campbell of Carlsbad, was testing a newly rebuilt engine on his Cessna 177 when the engine blew up during his approach to McClellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad, authorities said.

With smoke filling the cabin and altitude dropping quickly, he decided to land the four-seat craft on the freeway.

Motorists hit the brakes as they saw the plane bear down just east of El Camino Real, but Campbell couldn't avoid Marshall's SUV, he said.

He said at the crash scene Monday that it appeared Marshall had slowed down in front of him, but Marshall said she doesn't remember slowing down for any particular reason.

She never saw him coming.

His left wing slammed into the back of her Saturn SUV, causing the plane to spin around and rest near the center divide.

The pilot emerged from the wreckage unscathed.

Marshall was flown to a trauma hospital but released hours later with bruising to her arms and torso and a scratch above her eye. She also required stitches in her mouth.

“I'm stiff, sore and a little shocked,” she said.

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Kristina Davis: (760) 476-8233; kristina.davis@uniontrib.com