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Pilot Killed in Mason County Crash: Plane Tried to Take Off Near U S 35

Posted on: Wednesday, 1 February 2006, 09:00 CST

By Charles Shumaker, The Charleston Gazette, W.Va.

Feb. 1--HENDERSON -- A small airplane took a fatal nosedive and crashed beside a busy Mason County highway Tuesday morning, killing the pilot.

Lantz B. Bricker, 25, of Salem, Ohio, was alone in the 1981 Piper aircraft, according to State Police Senior Trooper J.M. Finnicum.

The plane had been in a field along U.S. 35, about 10 miles south of Point Pleasant, since Sunday, when Bricker made an emergency landing because he was nearly out of fuel, according to Dave Green, an aviation safety inspector with the Federal Aviation Administration in Charleston.

Bricker returned to the plane Tuesday and tried to take off. The plane was traveling too slowly to take off but too fast to stop before it crashed, Green said.

Motorists and farmers who ran to Bricker's aid Tuesday found him alive, but he was pinned behind his plane's controls.

Shawn Sette, a Putnam County veterinarian, was among several people who rushed to the scene. He and his family were driving to Columbus, Ohio, when they came upon the crashed plane just a few feet off the roadway.

"A man was already there when I got to him and he propped up the pilot's seat. We tried to get pressure off the man," Sette said. "I saw movement and him breathe. I took his pulse."

A few minutes later, Sette said, the pilot stopped moving and there was no pulse.

By noon, rescuers had sliced the cockpit's top off and taken Bricker's body out as they tried to piece together the accident. No injuries were reported on the ground.

Witnesses told investigators and Sette that Bricker's plane narrowly missed the top of a passing tractor-trailer before turning over and crashing.

Investigators believe Bricker tried to take off from a gravel parking lot, but his left wing clipped a pole just as he began his ascent. Less than 30 feet in the air, the plane struck a power line, which probably caused it to flip and roll, Green said.

"Once he hit the items, it changed course," Green said.

The plane came to rest perpendicular to the ground just beside the two lanes of U.S. 35, leaving scattering pieces of wing across the roadway. Among thick brush, the single-engine private plane had a severed left wing.

Bricker did not have a flight plan filed with any nearby airports -- a step Green said was not necessary for the independent flight -- so his destination was not immediately clear.

Volunteer firefighters who responded to his emergency landing on Sunday said he was able to get fuel from the Gallia County, Ohio airport and attempt another takeoff.

The plane is registered to L.B. Insurance Agency Inc. of Dayton, Ohio. Bricker, who is a registered pilot, had borrowed the plane from a friend who works at the insurance company, Finnicum said.

U.S. 35 traffic was backed up for miles to the north and south for several hours after the crash Tuesday.

Bricker had a Web site from when he was a student at Ohio University. He said he was an aviation major, and on his resume, listed his professional objective as "To obtain a position as a professional pilot for a major airline."

To contact staff writer Charles Shumaker, use e-mail or call 348-1240.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Charleston Gazette, W.Va.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Charleston Gazette

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