Any crash you can dance away from
LISA JAMES/Press A Piper aircraft crashed immediately after takeoff at the Coeur d’Alene Airport/Pappy Boyington Field on Monday afternoon. The pilot walked away with minor injuries, authorities said.
By RALPH BARTHOLDT
Staff Writer
HAYDEN — The pilot of a two-seat single-engine plane that crashed Monday at the Coeur d’Alene Airport danced a jig for medics before he was transported to Kootenai Health.
His plane, a Piper PA-18 Super Cub, sat — with a bent wing and body damage — in the grass at the end of the runway where the crash occurred.
“It’s a good crash when you can walk away from it,” airport operations manager Phil Cummings said.
The plane’s 61-year-old pilot, Frank G. Gordon, of Coeur d’Alene, was transported to Kootenai Health following the 1:40 p.m. crash.
Investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigate aviation accidents, were at the airport Monday afternoon trying to determine the cause of the crash.
“It made a hard landing,” Allen Kenitzer, spokesman for the FAA said.
The agency released no further information.
According to witnesses, Gordon was taking off in his white and red Super Cub. The plane lifted off, witnesses said, then came back down as if to make a landing. Its left wing tilted down precariously, catching the edge of the runway causing the plane to overturn.
“The wing tip struck the ground,” Cummings said. “It cartwheeled the aircraft over.”
The plane came to rest at the end of the runway nearest Ramsey Avenue and Wyoming Street.
Kootenai County sheriff’s deputies and crewmembers from Northern Lakes Fire District responded to the scene.
“Gordon was the only occupant of the aircraft at the time of the crash,” according to a sheriff’s office press release. “(He) was conscious and alert … with obvious minor injuries.”
Gordon struck his head in the crash and had a sizeable gash, Cummings said.
He said when medics arrived, the pilot did a dance of gratitude for surviving the wreck.
When Cummings talked to family members Monday afternoon, he was told Gordon was undergoing surgery. Hospital representatives said Gordon was in fair condition at Kootenai Health as of 7 p.m. Monday.
Cummings suspects the Super Cub is totaled.
“It’s pretty destroyed,” he said. “It took a pretty good impact in the nose.”