Flatbed Truck Adds a Spin to Crash Landing
CHILOQUIN, Ore. — The pilot of a homemade plane trying to make an emergency landing on a highway landed instead on a flatbed truck.
Howard Aaron Hamer, 63, had just taken off from the airport in the high desert town of Chiloquin on Thursday when his single-engine plane lost power, state police said.
He decided to attempt an emergency landing northbound on U.S. Highway 97.
At the same time, the truck driver--also traveling north--pulled under Hamer’s plane without realizing it.
The plane’s propeller snagged on the truck’s sleeper berth. The nose of the aircraft remained on the berth, while the tail crashed down onto the empty flatbed trailer.
Hamer, who lives in Nevada City, Calif., and the truck driver, Filiberto Corona Ambriz of Arbuckle, Calif., were not injured.
Hamer said he never saw the truck until the impact, probably because he was watching southbound traffic and was trying to keep the nose of the aircraft up.
Ambriz also said he was unaware of the plane until he felt a bump and heard a loud bang.
Hamer built the Lancer 235 aircraft and has flown it for 10 years.
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