A mechanical failure is to blame after a plane was forced to make an emergency landing in a cornfield outside of the Chatham-Kent Municipal Airport on Friday morning.
Chatham-Kent police say at 9:20 a.m. this morning, emergency crews responded to an accident in a farmer’s field just east of the Chatham Airport.
Shortly after take-off, the small plane suffered a mechanical failure.
“The pilot tried to return to the airport, however when unable to, he made an emergency landing on private property in a corn field,” police officials said.
The pilot, a 66-year-old Thamesville man, was transported to the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance with what appeared to be non-life-threatening injuries.
Sonia Heuston, who works in the scale house of the Ridge Landfill near the airport, told the Sydenham Current she witnessed the plane come down.
“It was the noise that was not right,” she said. “It was a stuttering. I didn’t know if it was a truck having trouble or whatever. I looked out and it was an airplane, he was just turning around to head back towards the airport. He seemed like he had control because he was going the right way, but no he went down into the cornfield.”
Heuston said she thought she saw smoke at first, but there was no flames.
“So now I’m thinking it was just the dust that came up from under the field,” she said. “Then it was the quick response of the fire trucks and the police… they were fast.”
Heuston said she immediately called into the main office at the landfill site.
“There were farmers in the field and they were starting to run already, so I knew everything was taken care of,” she said. “My boss went over there to see if he could help too.”
Heuston said she was right beside the field when the plane went down, approximately a quarter of a mile from the crash site.
“This is a first,” she said. “They are always flying over here. I tend to remain calm in emergency situations but my heart was pounding. You don’t know if they are okay at first.”
Transport Canada was notified of the crash.
Here are some more photos of the scene from the Sydenham Current’s Tami Schram, including some of the Chatham-Kent Police Service using a drone as part of the investigation:
