A pilot from the Festus Airport parachuted to safety Tuesday afternoon (July 14) after a mechanical failure forced him to ditch his plane in a southern Illinois farm field.
The pilot, Tyler Rice, 19, of Deland, Fla., was uninjured. The plane crashed against the bluffs in the Mississippi River bottoms, said Josh Cook, Festus Airport manager.
The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) is investigating the crash scene in Monroe County, Ill., today (July 15).
The pilot radioed the airport to report a problem with a flap and started to attempt a landing. Cook said Rice realized he wasn’t able to land safely and flew back up.
Ed Kemper of Pevely, who is a commercial pilot with 41 years of experience as well as a flight instructor and a certified aircraft mechanic, was working at the airport Tuesday afternoon. Kemper was able to talk on the radio with Rice about what was going wrong and possible solutions.
“There were some moments of pretty sheer terror for him (Rice), and all I could do was sit here on the radio and try to help him keep control,” Kemper said. “We reached a point where we knew we needed to sacrifice the airplane and get him out of there alive.”
Rice was piloting a group of four skydivers and took off from the Festus Airport at about 3 p.m.
“All four skydivers exited the plane without incident,” Cook said. “It was while he (Rice) was descending to land when the vehicle issues happened.”
The plane, a Cessna 182 Skylane, is leased by Fly Free Skydiving, which operates out of the Festus Airport. The plane had been converted for skydiving, with one seat for a pilot and an open area for skydivers.
According to FAA requirements, Cook said, Rice also had a parachute. “Anytime the door of an airplane will be intentionally opened, every occupant of the plane must have a parachute,” he said.
Kemper and Cook talked with Rice about possible ways to resolve the mechanical issue.
“We talked with him for a good 20 minutes,” Cook said. “We all finally realized he wasn’t going to be able to fly straight and it was not safe to try to land it.”
Cook and Kemper told Rice to use the parachute and ditch the plane.
“Pilots are normally not wearing a parachute, but he was,” Kemper said. “We went through the procedures. We wanted to try to get the plane to crash in as remote a location as possible. The goal is that nobody gets hurt either in the airplane or on the ground. We might take out a couple of rows of corn or soybeans.”
Cook said before Rice jumped from the plane, the pilot shut off fuel to lessen the chance for a fire or explosion when the plane hit the ground.
Cook said Rice is a commercially rated pilot with more than 500 hours of flying time. He is a college student working as a pilot over the summer.
Rice also is a skydiver with about 100 jumps.
“Of course, it’s a lot different (jumping from a plane) when it’s not intentional,” Cook said. “Everything worked exactly as it was supposed to, and there is not a scratch on him at all.”
As soon as Rice was out of the plane, Kemper and Cook took off in a plane from the Festus Airport to try to spot him from the air and send help on the ground.
“We just knew the general area,” Kemper said, “over the river bottom. We weren’t able to spot him right away.”
Kemper and Cook returned to the Festus Airport.
A St. Louis news helicopter in the area to cover the breaking news, spotted Rice on the ground and radioed to the Festus Airport that he was safe.
“Some people from the area on the ground were the first ones there,” Kemper said. “A little while later he was able to borrow a cell phone and call me to tell me he was OK.”
Cook said he and Rice had flown in the same plane earlier Tuesday with no skydivers and no parachutes. “It was just about an hour or two before,” he said. “If that same issue had happened then, that would have been pretty bad.”