Training saved crew, aircraft from disaster

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September 5, 2008

Anonymous The Press Republican Fri Sep 05, 2008, 12:00 AM EDT

Instructor, students on board during uncommon problem

By KIM SMITH DEDAM

NORTH HUDSON -- An emergency plane landing on the Adirondack Northway Wednesday was the work of Seneca College flight instructor Michael Denning.

State Police Troop B Capt. John Tibbitts said the 92 Beechcraft F33A Model had a single engine that failed.

"The plane suffered an engine failure and thereby became a glider," Tibbitts said. "The pilot saw a straight section of roadway and landed it.

"It was a very good landing."

No one was injured and no property damaged in an emergency landing that first-responders described as perfect placement in the center of both I-87 northbound lanes, near mile-marker 96 in North Hudson, not far from High Peaks Welcome Center.

The road is a narrow two-lane asphalt ribbon surrounded by mountains of wilderness in the dense Adirondack Park.

TROUBLE RARE

Dominic Totino, director of academics and operations at the School of Aviation and Flight Technology at Seneca College in Toronto, said Denning, 24, of Ontario, did exactly as he was trained to do.

In a telephone interview Thursday, Totino said the plane experienced rare catastrophic failure in the engine.

"We've been operating those airplanes since 1992, and this is the first occurrence of engine failure we've seen."

The college has provided aviation training for 40 years, and this was its first instance of emergency landing like that.

Federal Aviation Administration officials were conducting an official inspection of the plane Thursday morning, Totino said.

Two Seneca College students flew as crew with Denning, but officials would not release their names.

CALL FROM TRUCKER

A cell-phone call from a trucker on only one bar of service alerted State Police to the incident, Tibbitts said.

"You get one bar there standing on the highway."

The stretch is notoriously part of the "dark zone," an area lacking in cell-phone coverage, where several tragic accidents have occurred in recent years.

The closest airport would have been Adirondack Regional Airport in Lake Clear, some 65 highway miles distant.

BEST DECISION'

John Robertson, chief flight instructor at Seneca College, has 200 students enrolled in the aviation school.

The pair on the plane with Denning are third-year students enrolled in a four-year program.

"The crew would have had to make a decision based on assessment of conditions at the time of the occurrence," Robertson said.

"Landing on the highway was the best decision to reduce risk of injury and damage to persons and property."

The plane was not visibly damaged in the emergency landing, but it stopped traffic, which was rerouted for several hours Wednesday evening.

The Seneca College students were flying with their instructor from Toronto to Burlington, Vt.

Denning, also a graduate of the aviation school, and his student crew were already on their way back Thursday afternoon.

Part of the aviation program syllabus provides students with exposure to a number of flight factors, including crossing into American air space, Customs clearance procedures and flight patterns over hilly terrain and sparsely settled areas, Robertson said.

TRAINING WORKED

College administrators said the safe and precise landing was reassuring.

"Especially from our perspective," Robertson said, "because that's what we are all about. That is what they were trained to do."

"It is testimony to the quality of training our students get," Totino said. "They followed the way they were taught to land for emergency procedures."

The aircraft was moved Thursday morning to a median stretch of cross-over on the Adirondack Northway, said Essex County Emergency Services Director Raymond Thatcher.

Totino said the plane, owned by Seneca College, would be dismantled, its wings taken off for return to Toronto.

kdedam@pressrepublican.com