Piper Navajo: Mystery noise and smoke causes "precautionary" landing with governor aboard

Gov. Dave Heineman almost made it out of office without an airplane incident.

But Tuesday evening at about 5 p.m., a flight to Kearney on the state's 1977 Piper Navajo ended abruptly when the plane had trouble at takeoff with five souls aboard: the governor of Nebraska, first lady Sally Ganem, pilot Dave Morris, a co-pilot and a state trooper.

The pilots and passengers heard an unusual popping noise -- Morris described it as like a backfire -- and there was a perception by some there was engine trouble and smoke.

The governor wondered, gosh, what's going on?

"We immediately circled the airport and landed within a couple of minutes," Heineman said. "We were back on the ground within two minutes, three minutes at the most."

During the five-minute flight, the plane climbed to about 1,500 feet before turning around, according to a flight tracking log. The noise coming from the left engine was cause for enough concern that Morris said he made an immediate decision to land. He called it a precautionary, rather than an emergency, landing.

He said he later learned from the tower that smoke was trailing the plane in the air.

"There was never any doubt we were going to make it safely back to the ground," Morris said.

But he did tell the governor no one was going anywhere in that plane that night.

Heineman said he didn't think it was serious as it was happening. But he later learned it was more serious than he thought.

"This is the first time we've had any kind of a serious mechanical failure in the 10 years that I've been governor," he said.

"The pilots did just an extraordinary job."

They are well-trained and took immediate action, he said.

Morris has been flying 35 years, with more than 10,000 flying hours. He retired from the State Patrol after 28 years, 14 of them on the security teams of governors Nelson and Johanns. He's been with the state Aeronatics Department 10 years.

The cause of the plane's malfunction isn't yet known, but Morris said it could have been a fuel-injection problem.

The safety of the state's planes became an issue during the past two years after Heineman asked last year to purchase a newer plane -- a 2001 Beechcraft King Air being sold by the University of Nebraska Foundation. The Legislature delayed the purchase in order to study what the best deal for the state would be, and NU sold its plane in the fall of 2013.

In June, the state purchased a new King Air for $3.5 million. The state's 1982 Piper Cheyenne was sold in November for $615,000, said the governor's spokeswoman, Jen Rae Wang.

Morris said the Navajo is rarely used to transport passengers. It’s primarily used by the Department of Roads for aerial photography.

The decision to fly to a Nebraska Farm Bureau banquet in Kearney Tuesday night was made late, Heineman said, and the King Air already had been scheduled by the University of Nebraska. He didn't want to bump that flight, so it was decided they would take the Navajo.

When the unexpected landing changed that plan, the governor said, they took the "Suburban Express" instead.

- Source:   http://fremonttribune.com