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Nightmare trip for 1st-time flyer
04/09/2007 08:47 - (SA)
Modesto, California - A woman on her first plane ride survived three emergency landings, jumping out of the bouncing plane on the third landing just seconds before it burst into flames.
Jinhua Lin, 43, was recovering from a broken leg and scrapes after Saturday's incident. The pilot of the small plane, William Supan, 57, was treated and released for smoke inhalation.
The pair were on a day trip in Supan's 1959 Piper TriPacer when he was forced to make an emergency landing at Modesto Airport because of smoke between the engine cover and windshield.
After Supan made a repair, the pair went up again, but more smoke forced them to land a second time, witnesses said. He attempted another repair and took off again, but the flight quickly ran into problems.
"His wings were wobbling and he wasn't in very good control of altitude," said Jason Tilford, a worker at the airport who spoke with the pilot. "The plane came screaming over (our) building and bounced really hard on all three landing gears."
As the plane bounced down the runway, Lin jumped out, witnesses said. Supan stopped the plane about 12.2 metres beyond the end of the runway and burst into flames.
"He (Supan) said there was a puff of smoke in the cockpit and tremendous heat coming from under the floorboards," Tilford told The Modesto Bee. "He said Lin was really nervous because it was her first flight and jumped (from the plane) because of the heat on her feet."
Neither Supan or Lin could be reached for comment.
A Federal Aviation Administration official inspected the wreckage, but no determination on the cause of the fire was immediately released.
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