Plane Crash at Mt. Vernon Airport
On Saturday the pilot of a Piper Navajo took a test flight from the Mt. Vernon Outland Airport but, at 12 thousand feet, he noticed a problem with the plane.
“He had some type of problem with the aircraft, but he didn’t know what exactly what it was,” said Mt. Vernon Fire Chief Kevin Sargent.
Sargent said the plane’s landing gear malfunctioned, so experts advised the pilot to stay in the air to burn off fuel in preparation for an emergency landing.
“He was able to burn that fuel down to about a quarter of a tank in each of the tanks, and at that point he had been flying around for several hours,” said Sargent.
Officials then gave the pilot the green light to attempt the landing. Sargent adds, “When he touched down, the landing gear that was down collapsed up, which was good and he was able to do a belly landing and skid along the runway with no incident, they had no fuel leakage. We had no injuries.”
The pilot escaped unharmed and is thankful to be alive.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the accident.
