Tiny Bubbles
Contributor
Seaplane tips over while landing
Web-posted May 31, 2005
By SVEN GUSTAFSON
Of The Oakland Press
WEST BLOOMFIELD TWP. - A 55-year-old West Bloomfield Township man walked away with mere facial lacerations after his single-engine seaplane crashed and capsized during a landing attempt Monday on Union Lake.
No other injuries were reported in the incident, which occurred about 1 p.m. on a day when many boaters were out enjoying the Memorial Day weather.
Ron Komer, who owns a home on the lake, was flying alone when he attempted to land his Cessna 206 seaplane in about 25 feet of water. He was heading west at the time of the accident. Alcohol was not a factor, said Oakland County Sheriff's Sgt. Dan Toth, but the plane's landing gear was.
"He was coming in to actually make a landing on the lake, and it appeared he failed to raise the landing gear," said Toth, who heads the county's Marine Division. "The plane flipped over."
Toth said Komer, an experienced pilot with many successful water landings under his belt, managed to free himself from the cockpit and was provided a flotation device by a nearby boater. Komer was taken ashore aboard a Marine Division boat that was patrolling the lake at the time.
He was taken to Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital in Commerce Township, where he was treated and released within two hours.
Tanya West, a Waterford Township resident who was attending festivities at her family-in-law's lakeside home, said she and others watched the plane come in and noticed that the wheels, normally retracted for a water landing, were deployed on the bottom of the plane's pontoons.
"The bottom of the plane ... kind of sputtered on the water, and then there was a big boom" as the nose hit the water and the plane flipped, she said.
"It sank pretty fast. A couple boaters were out there not far from the plane. It was obvious that he wasn't coming up anytime soon. One of the boaters dove under to get him."
West said Komer was trapped inside the cockpit for as long as two minutes. She said Komer expressed embarrassment and mild shock upon arriving safely ashore.
"He's lucky that people were out here," she said. "It made such a loud boom you would've thought that a gun went off."
Komer said he felt lucky.
"I've been flying for 41 years and never had a problem," Komer said after returning to the scene to gather belongings retrieved from the plane. "This was just my time."
While submerged and upside down in the water, Komer said he was thinking "about getting out of the airplane. I was not unconscious, and I couldn't get the doors open and it was filling up with water."
"Just somehow, some way, the wheels were deployed before I hit the water."
Neighbors said Komer is well-known on Union Lake for his frequent water landings. Bill Walker, a lakefront resident, said he was out on his pontoon boat when Komer flew overhead.
"I looked at the landing gear and thought, 'That doesn't look right,' " Walker said.
Walker said a "half-dozen" boats converged around the plane after it came to rest upside down in the water. He saw someone throw Komer a life preserver.
"We've watched that plane land umpteen times on the lake," he said.
Ironically, the same Cessna Komer crashed Monday capsized in 1984 in nearby Cass Lake when the plane was owned by Komer's late father, Adolph Komer, a decorated World War II bomber squadron leader and local real estate developer who lived in Bloomfield Hills.
He said that accident occurred after the plane's pontoons sprouted a leak and took on water.
Komer said he has owned the plane for about a year and had made many improvements on it. He said he intends to learn from Monday's mishap and continue flying.
"I believe in getting back on the horse and riding it again after you're thrown off of it," he said. Toth said an aviation salvage crew would use lift bags under the submerged plane's wings to redistribute the weight and lift the plane out of the water.
source:
http://www.theoaklandpress.com/stories/053105/loc_20050531003.shtml
Web-posted May 31, 2005
By SVEN GUSTAFSON
Of The Oakland Press
WEST BLOOMFIELD TWP. - A 55-year-old West Bloomfield Township man walked away with mere facial lacerations after his single-engine seaplane crashed and capsized during a landing attempt Monday on Union Lake.
No other injuries were reported in the incident, which occurred about 1 p.m. on a day when many boaters were out enjoying the Memorial Day weather.
Ron Komer, who owns a home on the lake, was flying alone when he attempted to land his Cessna 206 seaplane in about 25 feet of water. He was heading west at the time of the accident. Alcohol was not a factor, said Oakland County Sheriff's Sgt. Dan Toth, but the plane's landing gear was.
"He was coming in to actually make a landing on the lake, and it appeared he failed to raise the landing gear," said Toth, who heads the county's Marine Division. "The plane flipped over."
Toth said Komer, an experienced pilot with many successful water landings under his belt, managed to free himself from the cockpit and was provided a flotation device by a nearby boater. Komer was taken ashore aboard a Marine Division boat that was patrolling the lake at the time.
He was taken to Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital in Commerce Township, where he was treated and released within two hours.
Tanya West, a Waterford Township resident who was attending festivities at her family-in-law's lakeside home, said she and others watched the plane come in and noticed that the wheels, normally retracted for a water landing, were deployed on the bottom of the plane's pontoons.
"The bottom of the plane ... kind of sputtered on the water, and then there was a big boom" as the nose hit the water and the plane flipped, she said.
"It sank pretty fast. A couple boaters were out there not far from the plane. It was obvious that he wasn't coming up anytime soon. One of the boaters dove under to get him."
West said Komer was trapped inside the cockpit for as long as two minutes. She said Komer expressed embarrassment and mild shock upon arriving safely ashore.
"He's lucky that people were out here," she said. "It made such a loud boom you would've thought that a gun went off."
Komer said he felt lucky.
"I've been flying for 41 years and never had a problem," Komer said after returning to the scene to gather belongings retrieved from the plane. "This was just my time."
While submerged and upside down in the water, Komer said he was thinking "about getting out of the airplane. I was not unconscious, and I couldn't get the doors open and it was filling up with water."
"Just somehow, some way, the wheels were deployed before I hit the water."
Neighbors said Komer is well-known on Union Lake for his frequent water landings. Bill Walker, a lakefront resident, said he was out on his pontoon boat when Komer flew overhead.
"I looked at the landing gear and thought, 'That doesn't look right,' " Walker said.
Walker said a "half-dozen" boats converged around the plane after it came to rest upside down in the water. He saw someone throw Komer a life preserver.
"We've watched that plane land umpteen times on the lake," he said.
Ironically, the same Cessna Komer crashed Monday capsized in 1984 in nearby Cass Lake when the plane was owned by Komer's late father, Adolph Komer, a decorated World War II bomber squadron leader and local real estate developer who lived in Bloomfield Hills.
He said that accident occurred after the plane's pontoons sprouted a leak and took on water.
Komer said he has owned the plane for about a year and had made many improvements on it. He said he intends to learn from Monday's mishap and continue flying.
"I believe in getting back on the horse and riding it again after you're thrown off of it," he said. Toth said an aviation salvage crew would use lift bags under the submerged plane's wings to redistribute the weight and lift the plane out of the water.
source:
http://www.theoaklandpress.com/stories/053105/loc_20050531003.shtml
