Malin, Ore. – A local pilot is lucky to be alive following a plane crash Wednesday morning in southern Klamath County.
The crop duster went down at around 8:AM near Pickett and Drazil Road, just north of Malin.
“Arrived on scene, found the aircraft upside down, obviously it had crashed.” Notes Officer Mike Shepherd of the Malin Police Department. “Caught the power lines – and stopped rather quickly.”
Luckily, the pilot suffered only minor injuries in the crash.
“The pilot was out, walking around.” Recalls Shepherd. “A little disoriented, but that’s to be expected with what happened.”
Police have not released the name of the pilot.
Shepherd adds the ambulance wasn’t able to make it from the road across a field to make it to the crash site. “So one of the ambulance personnel loaded him into a civilian vehicle, and took him down to the ambulance, and they were going to assess him there.”
Power was knocked out to homes in the immediate area.
Officer Shepherd says there’s no evidence of any chemical contamination from the crash. “It didn’t appear to be any leakage there. When I talked to the owner of the company, he was saying that it wasn’t anything that was going to contaminate anything if it had leaked.”
But most importantly, the pilot is alive to fly another day.
“When you arrive at scenes like that, it’s not usually good.” Notes Shepherd. “In this case, it turned out good for the pilot, not so good for the aircraft.”
Investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration have been called in to help identify the exact cause of the crash.
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