Saturday, May 31, 2014

South River-Sundridge District Airport, Ontario, Canada

Plane crashes in Sundridge: Police report minor injuries as result of crash 

The plane crash occurred around 11 a.m. today when a pilot, who was taking a two-seater, fixed-wing airplane out for practice, crashed at the Sundridge-South River airport. 
 
Airport operator/manager Gary Thornborrow was luckily out on one of the airways when the plane came down. He could tell by the way it was coming in that something wasn’t right. 

He lost sight of the aircraft for a moment, but when  he came around the corner he saw the entire plane on the ground, flipped upside-down. 

“I raced to [the pilot] and he was kind of piled into the windshield, legs on the dash and he couldn’t get out,” said Thornborrow. 

Airplane gas was spewing everywhere, which worried Thornborrow as that type of fuel is very volatile. He dragged the pilot out of the plane just in case it blew up. 

Thornborrow went to get help from other pilots, who were in their hangars. They brought a truck down, picked up the pilot, and brought him to safety. Thornborrow then called 911 and other emergency officials. 
 
The crash site was cleaned up by late afternoon, but Thornborrow says the aircraft was destroyed. 

The pilot got to the airport around 9 a.m. to practice his “touch-and-go” — an exercise where pilots touchdown with wheels then lift off again. 

The pilot was on his third one when he clipped some trees. 

An ambulance took the pilot to a North Bay hospital with minor injuries, including a cut on the top of his head, several bruises on the front of his forehead, and a hurt shoulder from bracing himself for the flip. 
 
The crash is the second plane accident in the region in the last week. 
Seven days earlier, on Saturday, May 24, the lone pilot of a float plane, 76-year-old Frederick Near, of Acton, drowned when his plane flipped on Taylor Lake, near Dunchurch, at around 8 a.m.

Transport Canada Safety Board officials continue to investigate the cause of that crash. 

Story and photo gallery:  http://www.muskokaregion.com

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