Downed plane crashed in 2006 due to structural issues

© SooToday.com 2009

The single-engine Cessna R182 that made a forced landing this morning on Highway 17A in Garden River crashed almost three years ago at a municipal airport in Iowa, SooToday.com has learned.

Like today's occurrence, the earlier crash in October 2006 was blamed on mechanical problems with the plane, not pilot error.

Today, the American pilot of the 29-year-old fixed-wing plane told SooToday.com's Carol Martin that he was forced to bring it down this morning after experiencing engine-oil problems.

The plane is registered to Hap's Air Service, Inc. of Ames, Iowa, a 60-year-old company that offers rental aircraft, flight instruction, charters, maintenance and specialized aerial photography.

The aircraft's last airworthiness certificate was issued in May 2007 under the aerial surveying category.

Registered as N5274S, the high-performance plane rents for US$120 an hour.

It had been in the Sault since Wednesday of this week, arriving from Bromont, Quebec.

U.S. safety records reveal that the same aircraft suffered "substantial damage on impact with terrain" when its nose landing gear collapsed during an attempted landing on October 22, 2006 at Ames (Iowa) Municipal Airport.

A flight instructor was practising takeoffs and landings with a commercial pilot at the time.

As they made their final landing attempt, they noticed that a cockpit display light that indicated the landing gear was down and locked did not activate.

Through a visual inspection, the pilots were able to confirm that the main gear was extended, but they couldn't confirm that the nose gear was locked down.

The plane was brought down by the flight instructor, who tried to keep the nose wheel off of the ground as long as possible.

But as the Cessna decelerated almost to taxi speed, its nose gear buckled

A subsequent investigation found that one of two landing gear down-lock actuator pins was loose, extending partially out of its bearing.

Hap's Air Service maintenance staff reported that the other pin could not be moved until they got "rough with it."

A metallurgical examination found metal fatigue in both pins.

Late in 2005, Cessna had recommended reoccurring 200-hour visual inspections of the down-lock pins to ensure they were not loose.

Hap's told government investigators that the pins had been inspected within the previous 200 hours but company officials were unable to produce a logbook entry proving this.

Investigators determined probable cause of the 2006 crash to be "fatigue failure of the landing gear actuator pin and the exterior visual maintenance inspection for cracks not possible by company maintenance personnel."

With five mechanics, Hap's Air Service advertises itself as "the Midwest's leader in aircraft maintenance" and is both am authorized Cessna service station as well as a Federal Aviation Administration-certified repair station.

Today, SooToday.com's Carol Martin spoke briefly with the pilot of the downed plane in Garden River.

He identified himself to her as Jarad Panarello from Boston.

A search of U.S. pilot certification records shows that Panarello resides in the northeast Massachusetts town of Saugus and is a commercial pilot certified for single- and double-engine airplanes and instrument flying.

He landed the plane after losing a large quantity of engine oil.

Panarello told us he was reasonably calm during the forced landing because he had been trained to do it.

SooToday.com reader Cindi Eppert was driving to her job in the Sault this morning on Highway 17A from Echo Bay when she "saw a plane coming down toward me."

Because that part of the highway contains few landmarks, Eppert was unaware of her exact location, but she says she was behind Garden River near the power lines in a place where the highway wasn't straight.

"When he came to the power lines, he went under them," she told SooToday.com.

Eppert says she was close enough to the small aircraft to clearly see that there was only one person inside.

"Coming toward me, I thought he was going to land in my lane. He went beside me in the median between the two highways."

After the plane passed her, Eppert watched it as long as she could in her rear-view mirror.

She believes it attempted to land on the highway, but witnessed it rapidly approaching another vehicle before she lost sight of it.

Eppert was unable to phone police because her cell phone was dead.

At time of writing on Saturday afternoon, SooToday.com's Carol Martin is with the downed plane, which is being carried on a flatbed truck to Sault Ste. Marie Airport.

She will have additional coverage later today.

No one was injured during today's landing in Garden River.

Earlier SooToday.com coverage of this story

Plane reported down in Garden River (9:34 update) 9:53 a.m. update on downed plane - reader photo 10:38 update on Garden River forced landing More pictures of downed plane in Garden River Downed planed crashed in 2006 due to structural issues