Crash In The Nolichucky

A Morristown couple swam to safety about 2 p.m. Saturday after their World
War II vintage airplane crashed into the Nolichucky River while attempting
to take off from Cooper Field in southwestern Greene County.

Deputy Sheriff Randy Christy, who responded to the crash, on Saturday
identified the survivors as Joseph "Joe" Brooks, 58, and his wife, Charlaine
Brooks, 55, both of Ailshie Road, Morristown.

Christy's report listed the value of the airplane as $65,000. Efforts to
salvage the plane from the river are continuing today.

A check of the Federal Aviation Administration's Web site also indicated
that the airplane bearing FAA identification number N73677 was built in 1942
as a Fairchild Model M-62A. Its registered owners are Joseph G. Brooks and
Charlaine Brooks, the FAA Web site indicates.

A report filed by Deputy Christy said Joseph Brooks told him that the crash
took place as he attempted to take off in his World War II-vintage Fairchild
PT-26 trainer plane from Cooper Field, a grass airstrip along Fish Hatchery
Road.

Deputy Christy said the airplane climbed to about 30 feet above the ground
as it neared the end of the runway, then stalled and plunged nose-first into
the Nolichucky River.

"He (Joe Brooks) said it was just like the air went out from under the
airplane," the deputy said on Saturday afternoon.

About The Plane

The PT-26 is a "canopied version" of the open-cockpit PT-19 Cornell
developed by Fairchild in 1938, according to the Web site of the U.S. Air
Force Museum.

"Designed as a rugged monoplane primary trainer, the PT-19 went into
quantity production for the Army Air Corps in 1940," the Web site stated.

"In 1942, the Army Air Forces (AAF) ordered the PT-26 into production for
the Royal Canadian Air Force under the Lend-Lease Program. A total of more
than 1,700 PT-26s were produced in the U.S. by Fairchild and in Canada by
Fleet Aircraft, Ltd." The airplane has seats for two occupants located one
behind the other.

When in use as a basic pilot training aircraft during World War II,
witnesses said at the scene on Saturday, the student pilot would have sat in
the front seat, while an instructor pilot sat in the rear seat.

Crash Witnessed

John Cooper, who operates the grass-field airport, witnessed the crash.
Cooper said he noticed that the airplane seemed to have used more of the
2,250-foot-long runway than usual before it lifted off and then began to
wobble in the air as it neared the river at the end of the runway.

The airport owner said he saw the airplane plunge toward the river and
disappear. The Web site of the Indiana Wing of the Commemorative Air Force,
which operates a similar airplane, lists the "normal take-off speed" of a
PT-26 as "60-65 miles per hour."

It also notes that the airplane's "stall speed" is 61 miles per hour. The
airplane, according to the Web site, is powered by a 200 horsepower
inverted, incline 6-cylinder "Ranger" engine.

Cooper said he and other area residents rushed to the end of the runway and
discovered that the airplane had drifted downstream after impacting the
water.

Other witnesses at the scene said they were astonished to see Joe and
Charlaine Brooks emerge, wet, but with what appeared to be only minor
injuries, from a wooded area downstream from the end of the runway and begin
walking across a corn field.

Cooper said he believed Brooks, who is a certified aircraft airframe and
power plant mechanic, had been planning to fly at the time of the accident
to Mountain City, where he had been performing an "annual inspection" on
another airplane. Mike Minnich, who is a Morristown resident and friend,
described Joe Brooks as "an excellent pilot."

Minnich said Cooper had telephoned him of the crash and that he had come to
the scene to check on Brooks and see if the airplane could be salvaged from
the river. Canadian Markings

The bright yellow airplane, which bore World War II Royal Canadian Air Force
markings, sat half-submerged in the river when a Greeneville Sun reporter
reached the scene on Saturday afternoon.

Greeneville Emergency & Rescue Squad volunteers on Saturday afternoon used a
boat to reach the downed airplane and tied a rope to the shaft of the
airplane's broken wooden propeller. They secured the rope to a tree on the
river's bank to keep the airplane from floating away.

Minnich said he hoped the airplane could be floated downstream to a private
boat ramp where it could be pulled from the river.

But Minnich, who said he owns a similar airplane, said the airplane's fuel
tanks likely would have to be drained before it would float free of the
bottom. Rescue Squad volunteers said the river was only about four feet deep
at the point where the airplane had come to rest facing upstream on its
wheels.

The only damage to the airplane that was visible on Saturday from the river
bank appeared to be a crumpled right wingtip and a shattered wooden
propeller.

But Anthony Underwood, another friend of pilot Brooks, said water likely
would ruin the airplane's wooden wings if it could not be removed from the
river soon. Underwood said the airplane fuselage (body) was composed of a
welded steel-tube frame covered by aircraft fabric.

On Saturday afternoon, Underwood, who was taken to the airplane in a Rescue
Squad boat, recovered the airplane's Global Positioning System receiver,
emergency-locater transmitter (ELT) and other items from the partially
flooded interior of the airplane.

Recovery Efforts Continuing

This morning, John Cooper said the airplane remained stuck in the river
about 250 yards downstream from the end of the Cooper Field runway. Cooper
said two scuba divers who are friends of the airplane's owner attempted
unsuccessfully on Sunday to place inflatable lifting bags beneath the
airplane.

Today, Cooper said, friends of the pilot planned to attempt to attach a
number of large truck-tire inner tubes to the airplane's wings in the hope
that the inner tubes would provide enough lift to allow the airplane to be
floated downstream to a point where it can be lifted out of the river with a
crane.

Should that tactic fail, Cooper said, a large crane may be brought to the
end of the runway and a cable floated downstream to the airplane so that it
can be pulled back upstream to the end of the runway and then lifted from
the river.



--
Patrick Dixon
student SPL
aircraft structural mech