Jesse Joe
09-21-2006, 05:59 AM
September 21, 2006
Pilot walks away from crash
http://www.canadaeast.com/storyImages/CEExport90473_42336.jpg
After engine stalls, retired Mount A professor glides single-engine plane into trees to break aircraft's fall
Sackville pilot Eugene Goodrich walked away from single-engine plane crash this week. He sustained a head injury and a fractured pelvis
Eugene Goodrich didn't have much time to worry Tuesday afternoon.
He was high above the ground in a single-engine plane that no longer wanted to stay in the air. Things had been going fine until fuel suddenly stopped getting to the engine.
He had only a couple of minutes to get the plane on the ground.
How worried was he?
"That's not a question you can answer in that situation," he says. "You're a trained pilot. You just react."
His reaction was the correct one. Goodrich crash-landed the plane just south of Hillsborough and he lived to talk about it.
As he recalls the experience from his bed at The Moncton Hospital, he now admits there was a moment when he wasn't sure if he would survive.
"Yeah, I didn't know," says the pilot. "I thought that might be it."
Goodrich, 67, was a history professor at Mount Allison University before retiring in 2002. He's been flying planes for almost 20 years and owns a Cherokee 140 and an open cockpit parasol plane. He also has aerobatic training.
The Sackville resident says he had dreams of becoming a pilot when he was young but never followed through with it. He was actually afraid to fly commercially for a while.
In 1983, when his manual typewriter gave out, he replaced it with an IBM computer that had a flight simulator program, which he says "gave him the bug." In 1987 he paid $25 for an introductory flying lesson and never looked back.
"I was hooked like it was crack cocaine," he says, adding he has accumulated more than 2,000 hours in the air.
Goodrich was at an airstrip in Dawson Settlement Tuesday afternoon, but he wasn't there to fly one of his own planes. A friend was having repairs done to a two-seater and needed someone to take it up for a test flight.
A seasoned mechanic worked on it and when they tested it on the ground, everything looked like it was working. Goodrich took the plane up because he's got more recent experience piloting a plane.
He took off around 3 p.m. and says he was just circling the airfield for a while. Around 3:30 p.m., as he took a loop further away from the airstrip, the plane suffered a "fuel starvation problem." For some reason the fuel wasn't getting to the engine.
"Nothing I could do would start it," he says.
Pilot Eugene Goodrich walked out of the woods near Hillsborough with a fractured pelvis and head injuries.
Goodrich says he was flying a high-performance aircraft and with the engine gone, it wasn't going to glide for long. He says he had only a couple of minutes because it was coming down fast.
In retrospect, he says he shouldn't have strayed so far from the airfield, but the plane seemed to be working fine.
He looked for a field, but saw none. He looked at nearby roads, but there were power lines. Finally he decided to slow down as much as he could and head for the woods.
Goodrich says his intention was to "mush into trees."
"The plane was going down pretty fast and I had to get it to stall at the top of the trees," he says.
The intent is for the trees to cushion the plane's landing so that it comes to a stop on or amongst the trees. Even though Goodrich survived with relatively minor injuries, he says he would have emerged unscathed if he'd pulled off the landing.
"Unfortunately, it fell out of the trees," he says.
The plane fell roughly 20 feet to the ground, nose first. The propeller came off and the front of the plane was destroyed.
Goodrich was able to walk away from the wreck, though not without pain. He suffered a head injury which involved substantial bleeding and also fractured his pelvis.
It took him more than 30 minutes, but he found his way out of the woods after finding a logging road and an ATV trail. He made it to paved road, which police say was Fairview Avenue, sat down and waited for someone to find him.
An ATV eventually came by and an ambulance was called. Goodrich said he mistakenly left his cellphone in his own plane.
He was taken to hospital and is not sure how long he'll be there.
Caledonia RCMP Cpl. Chris Goodwin says it's amazing the pilot survived.
"After seeing the wreck, it's surprising anyone could walk away from it," he says.
Goodwin says the Department of Environment had a crew at the scene Tuesday night to deal with the spilled fuel and the matter has been turned over to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which investigates such incidents.
Goodrich says he's had close calls before, but this is the first time he's ever been injured in a crash landing. He says it's not a unique happening, because planes this size go down from time to time.
He says if he landed it properly, no one would have even heard about it.
Goodrich says he's no daredevil when he flies and he'll continue to take to the skies.
"Life hangs by a thread," he says. "You can cross the road and get killed."
[ September 21, 2006, 06:04: Message edited by: Jesse -Joe ]
Pilot walks away from crash
http://www.canadaeast.com/storyImages/CEExport90473_42336.jpg
After engine stalls, retired Mount A professor glides single-engine plane into trees to break aircraft's fall
Sackville pilot Eugene Goodrich walked away from single-engine plane crash this week. He sustained a head injury and a fractured pelvis
Eugene Goodrich didn't have much time to worry Tuesday afternoon.
He was high above the ground in a single-engine plane that no longer wanted to stay in the air. Things had been going fine until fuel suddenly stopped getting to the engine.
He had only a couple of minutes to get the plane on the ground.
How worried was he?
"That's not a question you can answer in that situation," he says. "You're a trained pilot. You just react."
His reaction was the correct one. Goodrich crash-landed the plane just south of Hillsborough and he lived to talk about it.
As he recalls the experience from his bed at The Moncton Hospital, he now admits there was a moment when he wasn't sure if he would survive.
"Yeah, I didn't know," says the pilot. "I thought that might be it."
Goodrich, 67, was a history professor at Mount Allison University before retiring in 2002. He's been flying planes for almost 20 years and owns a Cherokee 140 and an open cockpit parasol plane. He also has aerobatic training.
The Sackville resident says he had dreams of becoming a pilot when he was young but never followed through with it. He was actually afraid to fly commercially for a while.
In 1983, when his manual typewriter gave out, he replaced it with an IBM computer that had a flight simulator program, which he says "gave him the bug." In 1987 he paid $25 for an introductory flying lesson and never looked back.
"I was hooked like it was crack cocaine," he says, adding he has accumulated more than 2,000 hours in the air.
Goodrich was at an airstrip in Dawson Settlement Tuesday afternoon, but he wasn't there to fly one of his own planes. A friend was having repairs done to a two-seater and needed someone to take it up for a test flight.
A seasoned mechanic worked on it and when they tested it on the ground, everything looked like it was working. Goodrich took the plane up because he's got more recent experience piloting a plane.
He took off around 3 p.m. and says he was just circling the airfield for a while. Around 3:30 p.m., as he took a loop further away from the airstrip, the plane suffered a "fuel starvation problem." For some reason the fuel wasn't getting to the engine.
"Nothing I could do would start it," he says.
Pilot Eugene Goodrich walked out of the woods near Hillsborough with a fractured pelvis and head injuries.
Goodrich says he was flying a high-performance aircraft and with the engine gone, it wasn't going to glide for long. He says he had only a couple of minutes because it was coming down fast.
In retrospect, he says he shouldn't have strayed so far from the airfield, but the plane seemed to be working fine.
He looked for a field, but saw none. He looked at nearby roads, but there were power lines. Finally he decided to slow down as much as he could and head for the woods.
Goodrich says his intention was to "mush into trees."
"The plane was going down pretty fast and I had to get it to stall at the top of the trees," he says.
The intent is for the trees to cushion the plane's landing so that it comes to a stop on or amongst the trees. Even though Goodrich survived with relatively minor injuries, he says he would have emerged unscathed if he'd pulled off the landing.
"Unfortunately, it fell out of the trees," he says.
The plane fell roughly 20 feet to the ground, nose first. The propeller came off and the front of the plane was destroyed.
Goodrich was able to walk away from the wreck, though not without pain. He suffered a head injury which involved substantial bleeding and also fractured his pelvis.
It took him more than 30 minutes, but he found his way out of the woods after finding a logging road and an ATV trail. He made it to paved road, which police say was Fairview Avenue, sat down and waited for someone to find him.
An ATV eventually came by and an ambulance was called. Goodrich said he mistakenly left his cellphone in his own plane.
He was taken to hospital and is not sure how long he'll be there.
Caledonia RCMP Cpl. Chris Goodwin says it's amazing the pilot survived.
"After seeing the wreck, it's surprising anyone could walk away from it," he says.
Goodwin says the Department of Environment had a crew at the scene Tuesday night to deal with the spilled fuel and the matter has been turned over to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which investigates such incidents.
Goodrich says he's had close calls before, but this is the first time he's ever been injured in a crash landing. He says it's not a unique happening, because planes this size go down from time to time.
He says if he landed it properly, no one would have even heard about it.
Goodrich says he's no daredevil when he flies and he'll continue to take to the skies.
"Life hangs by a thread," he says. "You can cross the road and get killed."
[ September 21, 2006, 06:04: Message edited by: Jesse -Joe ]