The Plane Crash

It was 13 years ago today that I walked away from a plane crash.

A lot of people don't know that little fact and I thought I'd tell the story for those of you who didn't know about it. 

I was working for a company out of Chesterfield, MO at the time, and the company was headquartered in the Chesterfield Valley next to the Spirit of St. Louis Airport.  I began to work with them in June of 1993, right before the height of the Great Flood of that year.  The company's office was located about two miles south of the Missouri River and in late July the Army Corps of Engineers told people in the Chesterfield Valley to vacate the area because the levees would be breaking. 

My boss at the time, Rod Tolle, was a pilot and had his plane, a Beechcraft Baron, over at the Spirit of St. Louis Airport.  The Corps of Engineers told pilots to find another place to park their planes, so Rod had that hassle on top of the moving of files, office equipment, samples and other stuff to a temporary location in St. Peters, MO. 

Rod ended up moving his Baron to the Wentzville, MO airport (which is now closed).  And after the levee broke the night of July 30th, it flooded the valley with 10 to 14 feet of water (the Corps of Engineers had predicted that it would only go to six to eight feet deep).   

During all of this, due to stress and being a diabetic, Rod's blood pressure went through the roof, effectively grounding him from flying by the FAA.  Through medication, he was able to control it.  However, in order to be reinstated as a pilot, he had to undergo 20 hours of flight time with a flight instructor.  This was no problem to Rod - he loved to fly and, besides, the flight instructor was one of his best friends. 

Rod and his partner, Craig Andrews, had scheduled a company meeting at Craig's place in Omaha for Sept. 13 and 14.  But before that, I had to go to Dallas for a trade show for a few days.  Then it would be back in St. Louis for Sunday night, then off to Omaha.  Then after the Omaha trip, I would have to stay in St. Louis thru the following weekend to work a promotion at a number of Circuit City stores in the greater St. Louis area. 

Now, this was just at the time that Cindy and I first began to date, so I was scheduled to be gone from Sept. 7 thru Sept. 19.  I'm telling you, life on the road ain't all that glamorous. 

Rod decides that he is going to fly himself, me, our sales manager, Dixon Smart, and one of the office ladies in St. Louis, Judy, up to Omaha for the meetings on Monday morning Sept. 13.  The previous Friday, Rod called his mechanic and had him go out to Wentzville to give the Baron a once over and to take it out for a shakedown flight.  As the mechanic was flying at 3000 feet near Wentzville, he hit a bald eagle in flight (no shit!) and put a hole in the wing.  The plane was grounded by the FAA until the hole got fixed.

Well, it wasn't going to get fixed over the weekend, so Rod was in a panic.  He got a hold of his flight instructor/friend and asked if he could rent his Beechcraft Twin Bonanza.  The guy told Rod, "Aw, just fill it up with fuel after you get back and we'll call it even." 

His friend's plane was parked at the old Weiss Airport, across from the Chrysler assembly plant along I-44 in Fenton, MO.  So we had to meet the next morning at Weiss Airport for the flight to Omaha.

(An aside - Weiss Airport was sort of a famous destination along the old Route 66, thanks to a number of billboards along the highway between Chicago and Springfield, MO that would advertise "Learn to Fly in 5 Easy Lessons at Weiss Airport, Fenton, MO."  Weiss Airport closed in May of 1994 and is now the site of a number of large office buildings.)

The day started out nice and we got into the air around 8 a.m.  About 40 miles northwest of St. Louis, we ran into a very strong cold front.  We were buffeted about and it was very nerve wracking.  Finally, after about 3 hours in the air (we should have been to Omaha in two hours), Rod finally announced that he was going to go to Des Moines and park there, rent a car and drive the rest of the way out.  I thought, "Des Moines!  That's no where near the flight path!" 

Turned out that the headwinds were so strong that we were only going about 90 miles an hour!  That's some pretty strong winds aloft!

We landed in Des Moines, rented a van and went to Omaha.  After delaying the first day's meeting, we met again on Tuesday, then the St. Louis group left for Des Moines to get in the plane and fly back to Weiss Airport.

The flight back was pretty routine.  We were above the clouds and I watched the sun set into the clouds, which was pretty neat to see.

After about an hour and a half, we made out descent into the St. Louis area.  About three hours prior, a heavy thunderstorm had come through the area accompanied by a strong cold front pushing the winds out of the northwest at about 20 to 25 miles an hour.  Weiss Airport had a runway that ran north and south, so Rod swung the plane around and approached from the south. 

Rod was in the pilot's seat, Dixon was in the co-pilot's seat.  I was in the jump seat directly behind the pilot, and Judy, who was a rather large lady, was in the big seat in the back of the plane facing me. (The trip the day before was Judy's first flight in a plane - it was one helluva inaugural flight, I'm tellin' ya!). 

As we're coming in over a grove of trees, and in the last part of evening light I could see a number of planes parked on either side of the runway at Weiss - a number of which were refugees from the Spirit of St. Louis airport.  The runway at Weiss was only about 30 feet wide, making it sort of tight and with little to no margin of error.

As we were on our final approach, I could feel the wind rock the plane to the right a little bit.  Rod was fighting the wind all the way down.  I just turned around, took a deep breath and sat there waiting to get on the ground.

Suddenly, I felt a large thud, then a couple more.  My body was being thrown from right to left and back again.  It happened so quickly that I really didn't know what was going on.

We ground to a halt and I noticed that we were on fire on the left side of the plane.  I figured that we had a hard landing and ruptured a tank on the wing.  I heard Rod yelling, "Get out, Judy!  Get out!"  I helped Judy out through the front and there was a back emergency door on the left side of the plane.  I jumped through that - and right out into the fire. 

Now, just to show you how much of a dumbshit I can be from time to time, I stopped for a second and thought, "My briefcase is on that plane."  There's a little compartment behind the back seat of the plane where our briefcases were stowed and I almost went back and got them.  But looking at the fire raging around the wing area of the plane, I thought better.

I ran around one side of the building and saw Rod running off to call for help.  Dixon was holding Judy, who hurt herself in all the excitement.  All three were sopping wet.  It turned out that when they jumped out of the plane, they went right into a huge puddle of water off the tarmac that had formed when the big thunderstorm had come through earlier. 

Fire trucks and ambulances show up soon thereafter.  They put out the fire and tended to Judy.  I was standing there with Dixon and I was looking out at some planes that were damaged and one case, completely obliterated.  I said to Dixon, "What happened to those planes?"

He said, "You don't know, buddy?  Hell, we HIT those planes!"

I said, "What?!"

Dixon said, "Yeah, we hit those planes.  Hell, if they wouldn't have stopped us like they did, we were headed right for that hanger.  Hitting those planes may have saved our lives!" 

I turned around and looked at this white building our damaged plane was sitting next to, not any more than 10 feet away.  I said, "Wow!" 

We were quiet for a second, watching all the commotion, and I finally turned to Dixon and said, "Do we fly much in this company?" 

To this day, when Dixon and I see each other and reminisce about the crash, he always brings that up. 

They took Judy to the hospital and took us to the St. Louis County Police Department facility in Fenton to wait for an FAA official to show up to interview us.  On the way in the back of a squad car, we must have passed four or five taverns and/or liquor stores.  I was PLEADING with the officer to stop and let me get a six pack.  He wouldn't do it.  Fun hater...

While we were at the police station, they allowed us to call our family to let them know we were OK.  Well, hell, I called EVERYBODY whose number I could remember off the top of my head (remember, my address book was in my briefcase on the plane - not damaged or lost, as it turned out). 

Cindy was first (she thought I was kidding her), then I called my dad, then other people in my family.  Then I started calling friends and I must have run up a healthy bill courtesy of the St. Louis County Police Department. 

They had us in there from about 9 p.m. to around 1 a.m. (the FAA official never showed up).  They let us go and I had to go to a hotel room for the night - not exactly what I wanted to do in that time and place in my life. 

The next day, we had to go out to Weiss Airport and talk with the FAA investigator.  I stopped and got a disposable camera.  While Rod was in talking to the investigator, Dixon and I were out snapping pictures of the wreckage. 

The daylight really showed the havoc we created on our landing.  One plane, a two-seat trainer, was completely decapitated and de-tailed; another plane was a twisted mess; and a third plane had a hole in the fuselage near the engine.  Our plane was just sitting there with a large burn mark on the left wing and engine.

Now, I took a bunch of pictures that day and I had them with me for a number of years because word spread that I was in a plane crash and everyone wanted to know the story.  I had the pictures in my briefcase and would bring them out when the story was brought up by dealers, other reps, friends, etc. 

Late last week, I went to look for them to scan them to add to this story - and all but one was gone.  I literally tore through my briefcase looking for them, but all I came up with was this one. 

This is a picture of the left side of the plane with all the fire damage to the wing and engine.  You can kind of see the one plane with the hole in the fuselage in the background, and the mangled mess of the one plane that we really tore up is just off to the side.

Damn!  I wonder what happened to those pictures!  I really hadn't brought them out for quite some time, so I just figured they were in my briefcase.  Oh well, that's sort of an episode in my life that I should try to forget, anyhow.

After we took the pictures, I had to go in and meet with the FAA investigator.  I couldn't tell the investigator much of anything.  I told him pretty much what I wrote earlier - Rod was having trouble with the crosswind, I turned around and just waited for the plane to land.  When the plane hit and stopped, I told him that I thought it was just a hard landing.   The FAA investigator - a crotchety old sort - said in an exasperated tone, "Well, you're no help at all!" 

For the record, the official FAA finding was that when Rod was coming in for the landing, the strong wind kept pushing him to the right.  When he got about 20 feet off the ground, he gunned both engines to go around.  (Or as he told the FAA investigator, "I was having so much fun trying to land the plane that I decided to go around and try it again.")

When he gave the engines full throttle, it literally flooded the right engine and it stopped.  The left engine remained alive and "corkscrewed" the plane down to the right and into the planes on the ground.  Rod's Baron, manufactured in the early 80's, had a system on it that if too much gas was applied via the throttle, it would regulate the flow as to not flood the engine.  The Twin Bonanza was built in the 60's and didn't have the fuel regulator device.  So the engine was flooded and it quit.

I never did ask Rod how much that little escapade ended up costing.  I mean, he thoroughly destroyed two planes and inflicted minor to major damage on two more, including our plane.  It had to be a lot of money that Rod's insurance company had to cough up. 

All I know is that after looking back at what could have been, I tell people that I've already hit the lottery - life's lottery.  I could have very easily been gone 13 years ago.      

Comments

[Will Veber]

I thought I'd told you about this, Timmy. But, then again, about the time we first met, the story was pretty old and I just thought everyone knew about it.

[Tim Lake]

I've never heard this story before and I've known you for over 10 years. was it that frightening that you don't like to talk about it?

[Will Veber]

Actually, I got back on a flight (a commercial flight) the very next week. I've not been in a small private plane since then.

A casual friend of mine who used to be a corporate pilot told me something one time that put my mind at ease when a flight would get a little hairy.

He said, "Just remember this - if a pilot's in trouble he doesn't give a damn about the passengers. He's going to do everything possible to get his ass on the ground. You're just along for the ride. And unless he has a death wish, there's a very good chance you're going to get through things OK."

That's made me feel somewhat secure during plane flights.

[Tim Sloane]

Wow! That's quite a story. Are you afraid to fly? Obviously not, since you travel a lot.