2 small planes survive midair collision

Thursday, February 17, 2000 By JOSEPH L. WAGNER PLAIN DEALER REPORTER

NEW RUSSIA TOWNSHIP - Two pilots who collided 3,300 feet in the air have lived to talk about it.

"I thought the Good Lord had called me, that I was going to die," said Duane L. Shrimplin, 64, of Mansfield.

Shrimplin said he had nightmares about the near head-on crash on Tuesday between his Cessna 172 and a Piper Dakota. The collision occurred over southwest Erie County.

But the other pilot, Walter Hendricks, 76, of LaGrange, said the accident had no significant effect on him.

"I slept like a baby," Hendricks said. "I just dont get shook up."

Despite their contrasting reactions, the outcome was the same for both pilots and Shrimplins passenger, Jerry L. Kenison of Mansfield: They survived what could just as easily have been a deadly midair collision at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday.

"To have a midair collision of any sort and the pilots can walk away from it ... thats rare," said State Highway Patrol Sgt. Gregg Westover, who is a pilot and has 19 years experience investigating airplane accidents.

Westover inspected Hendricks damaged plane yesterday, the day after its uneventful landing at Lorain County Regional Airport in New Russia Township.

Westover said the skills of both pilots and the craftsmanship of their planes saved their lives. Hendricks "is a fairly seasoned pilot" and he has an instructors license. Shrimplin said he obtained his pilots license in 1969.

Shrimplin had guided his crippled plane - the passenger side door was torn off - to Galion Airport, five miles west of Mansfield. One of the seats in the plane had nearly been ripped out by the impact of the collision.

Shrimplin landed at Galion Airport, after a low-altitude flyover to allow rescue crews to determine whether his landing gear was undamaged.

Then, unable to sleep, Shrimplin had spent the night logging flight hours for the State Highway Patrol.

The patrol and the National Transportation Safety Board continued their investigation into the collision, which occurred over Groton or Oxford townships near Norwalk. Shrimplin said he believes his door landed two miles north of Norwalk. It has yet to be found.

Shrimplin, a retired millwright worker at the Mansfield General Motors Corp. plant, said he had met Kenison, another GM retiree, at the Galion Airport on Tuesday and offered to take him joyriding around the Lake Erie Islands.

%%JUMP%%PLANES/2-B They did and landed at Sandusky for a hamburger lunch.

Shrimplin said he took off and was heading south when "I saw this vertical fin for a split second, then heard this loud bang. I didn't make any evasive action. He was just there."

Hendricks' cockpit slammed into the passenger side between the wing strut and engine, two critical areas which, if damaged, could have downed him. The collision ripped off the door. He noticed damage to both sides of his rear fuselage, but he realized that he still had complete control of the plane.

"I didn't know if I had landing gear," said Shrimplin.

He radioed Mansfield Airport and they urged him to attempt a landing there because the facility had crash equipment.

Shrimplin said his plane was responding so well that he opted to land at his home field in Galion.

Hendricks, a former electrical contractor who is now retired, said he was flying northbound "to exercise" a new engine on Tuesday.

"I never saw the other aircraft, though I scanned from right to left," said Hendricks, speaking in a matter-of-fact tone.

Hendricks' windshield was broken, the fuselage had stress fractures and the tail had some damage, Westover said.

Hendricks said he first looked for a nearby field to land. Then, after he, too, discovered his controls had not been damaged, he flew to Lorain County Regional Airport, where he landed without any difficulty.

"In all my years, I've never seen anything like it. The guy [Hendricks] was very fortunate," said Michael Barth, airport director and the former chief of Cleveland's Burke Lakefront Airport.

E-mail: jwagner@plaind.com Phone: 1-800-767-2821

)2000 THE PLAIN DEALER. Used with permission

http://www.cleveland.com/news/index.ssf?/news/pd/cc17plan.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 17, 2000

Answers

Although I didn't witness it personally, the collision happened practically over my head while I was at work. Scary, it's a good thing they didn't collide and drop to the ground...

-- Powder (Powder47keg@aol.com), February 17, 2000.

That would be SIX collisions of light aircraft in roughly one week. My tally includes Georgia crash yesterday in a last minute attempt to miss a helicopter.

-- (snowleopard6@webtv.net), February 17, 2000.

Sounds like another situation of overflowing non-compliant buffers in the navigational avionics.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), February 17, 2000.