Grafton flyin emergancy landing

[Kenny]

I did'nt know wether to post this article in the incident forum or the events forum so I will post it in both.

 

All I can add is " if you wernt there you missed a great weekend"

 

 

 

Cheers

 

 

 

Ken

 

 

 

Crash landing for plane in paddock

 

Graham Orams | 1st November 2010

 

Short landing: The Cessna pulls up short of the South Grafton airstrip on Saturday.

 

Debrah Novak

 

 

THE Grafton Aero Club's annual Jacaranda Muster had some unwanted excitement just hours before finishing up yesterday.

 

About noon, a Cessna 206 being used for skydiving needed to make an emergency landing not far from the airstrip.

 

The plane had taken off with a load of tandem skydivers, something it had been doing all weekend.

 

The aircraft's owner, Bernie Stevermuer, was one of the skydivers.

 

He said they rose to a jumping height of 10,000 feet and all the jumpers left the plane without incident.

 

However, once they had all safely landed, Mr Stevermuer received a call on his mobile phone from the pilot to say the plane had needed to ditch in an open paddock.

 

Mr Stevermuer said the aircraft had suffered engine failure on its return to the airfield and had needed to carry out an emergency landing a few hundred metres short of the runway.

 

The plane landed nose-down in a swampy paddock and suffered damage to its nose cone and left wing. Thankfully, there were no serious injuries.

 

It is understood a crane will be needed to move the aircraft.

 

Apart from the Cessna's engine failure yesterday, the weekend was a huge success.

 

Grafton Aero Club president Stuart Campbell said the annual Jacaranda Muster was always a great weekend for aviation enthusiasts.

 

Mr Campbell said the Muster – or fly-in – had now been running for 30 or 40 years.

 

He said it was a great annual Jacaranda event which brought in visitors from as far away as Moree and Newcastle.

 

“This year we had about 45 aircraft fly in,” Mr Campbell said.

 

“It's a great social event; a lot of people camp under the wings (of the aircraft).

 

“We got the SES in to do the catering for us so they made a few bob as well.”

 

Mr Campbell said those who took part in the weekend did a bit of flying, but also made time to enjoy barbecues and chats about their shared love of aviation.

 

He said he also introduced a number of new people to flying through short instructional flights.

 

The Muster is also used as an opportunity for the Aero Club to give the Jacaranda princesses a flight over Grafton.

 

Mr Campbell said the girls were always taken up on the Sunday to enable them to see Grafton from the air. He said they were all fairly excited by it and even got to fly the plane.

 

“As a flying instructor I was able to let the girls take the controls; they loved it,” he said.

 

 

[Spin]

Sounds like a good outcome in the circumstances, rather before landing than just after take off, with a full load.

 

A bit off topic here, but what's with the "ditching" in a paddock, I know it was supposed to be a bit damp but I thought ditching was dropping the whole contraption into a body of water, not just a forced landing? I saw another report recently where an aircraft crashed into trees, but you guessed it, some of the media had it ditching again. Where are the old time sub-editors when you need them?