Baron 58 lands on Houston playground

[Joe]

My sister Tracey, an educator, sent me this email yesterday:

"Got to school on Friday to major disruption -- there was a plane on the playground. It had made an emergency landing trying to fly into the airport you took the test flight at. Its engines stopped and the pilot had to make an emergency landing. Did some great flying, no one was hurt, but the poor plane!!!!! By Friday afternoon, FAA had pulled both engines removed the other wing and was preparing to haul it away to rebuild.

The guy tried to land across the street at the high school, but kids were playing baseball on the field he chose. He got the plane up high enough to fly across our school and onto the playground. He tried to turn the plane to taxi down the hardtop and emergency road, but clipped a wire and spun into the fence. He landed in less than 100 yards. He did an amazing job.

I took some pictures, but we weren't allowed to get anywhere near the areas, so the telephoto lens of the newspeople took better ones."

www.fox40tv.com/news/local/story/Pilot-survives-crash-landing-near-school/-dkerJHFS0C5b6PwvPIBZA.cspx

[Tom Goodrick]

I just checked the NTSB site on this crash. Here's their preliminary report:

On February 23, 2012, about 1859 central standard time, a Beech 58, N99EZ, experienced a total loss of engine power on both engines during a visual approach to West Houston Airport (IWS), Houston, Texas. The pilot subsequently made a forced landing about 7 miles northwest of IWS and near Cypress, Texas. The certificated commercial pilot was uninjured. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the wing. The airplane was operated by the pilot under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 as a personal flight. Night marginal visual meteorological conditions prevailed and a flight plan had not been filed for the flight that originated from Vicksburg Municipal Airport, Vicksburg, Mississippi, and was destined for IWS.

He had a failure of both engines on approach to the airport at night. He made a pass at one lighted sports field and saw kids on it. He had enough speed left to go across the street to an empty lighted field and get down. Amazing!