SAN DIEGO -- A California Highway Patrol officer issuing a ticket on Interstate 5 was killed Sunday morning when an allegedly drunken Marine slammed into his patrol car.

Stephen Linen (pictured, right), 31, of Oceanside, who has served on the force more than six years, is the second patrolman killed by an allegedly drunken driver on I-5 in northern San Diego County in less than a year.

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The accident happened on same stretch of freeway where CHP Officer Sean Nava was killed by a drunken driver last October. And as was the case in that crash, the driver was returning home from an evening in Mexico, 10News reported.

Lance Cpl. Jerome A. Bates, a 20-year-old Marine from Victoria, Texas stationed at Camp Pendleton, was arrested at the scene. He was booked in the San Diego County Jail in Vista on charges of manslaughter and felony drunken driving after he failed a field sobriety test, said Officer Tom Kerns, a CHP spokesman. Bates was not injured.

The early morning accident closed all four northbound traffic lanes in Encinitas for at least three hours and traffic was backed up for 10 miles most of the day.

All lanes were reopened at 5 p.m.

For most of the day, drivers cruised slowly past the charred patrol car, smashed at both ends, which sat amid a jumble of wreckage.

Shortly before 6 a.m., Linen stopped a Ford pickup for speeding. He was walking back to the truck with his citation book when a Dodge Intrepid driven by Bates veered onto the right shoulder and struck Linen's patrol car, which burst into flames (photo right courtesy F150World.com), Kerns said.

Linen was thrown onto the embankment and suffered massive injuries. A flashlight he had been using in the predawn darkness was thrown into the cab of the pickup, Kerns said.

He was airlifted to Scripps Memorial La Jolla and pronounced dead about 7 a.m., said Janet Lande, a hospital spokeswoman.

A passenger in the Dodge Intrepid Bates was driving, Christopher Sterling, a 30-year-old Camp Pendleton Marine, was listed in fair condition with a broken arm at Scripps Memorial.

Two people in the pickup stopped for speeding received minor injuries and were treated and released from Scripps Well Being Encinitas.

Last October, Officer Nava, 33, also of Oceanside stopped to investigate an accident in Carlsbad when he was struck and killed in October by a college student returning from a night of drinking in Tijuana, Mexico.

The suspect, Christopher Merrick, of Breckenridge, Colo., is scheduled to stand trial this fall on charges of second-degree murder.