Pilot Rescued From Cessna Dangling 50 Feet In The Air

A Silverdale man whose light plane flew into power lines early this morning and dangled by one wheel for nearly four hours was safely rescued from his precarious perch.

The pilot, Jerry Michael "Mike" Warren, 47, slid down the underside of the plane's left wing at 9:40 a.m., into the arms of Tukwila firefighters who were waiting in the bucket of a cherry picker.

As the firefighters pulled Warren to safety, spectators cheered and applauded.

The rescuers had given Warren a harness through a window of the plane. He put the harness on before releasing his seat belt, and emerging feet first from a cockpit window.

Once inside the rescue bucket, he shook the hands of one of his rescuers. He appeared to be in good condition.

The plane itself, stabilized by cranes on either side, was lowered to the ground in a harness around 11:20 a.m.

Warren, himself a crane operator who commutes to work each day in a Cessna 150, was flying from Silverdale to Boeing Field in Seattle and was attempting to land south to north at 5:43 a.m. when he veered sharply as he was touching down and went into the power lines, according Kurt Anderson with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

The red-and-white Cessna - weighing 2,000 pounds - hung midway between two power poles, about 50 feet off the ground. Its propeller was bent, the only apparent sign of damage.

Warren was examined at Harborview Medical Center and released. At a news conference this afternoon at the hospital, he said he had begun a normal landing when he "hit a wake of turbulence and the Cessna decided to do a few tricks of its own. It went left on me."

Warren said he tried to pull the plane up, but the power lines got in his way. "I didn't quite make it," he said, adding that when he hit the lines, "it was kind of like a bungee. There were a couple of fireballs."

After he was plucked from the cockpit, "he was happy to be on the ground," said Lt. Dave Ewing of the Tukwila Fire Department.

Tukwila Fire Department Lt. Stephen Wheeler was one of the first on the scene.

"I said, `Holy mackerel, what in the world'? " Wheeler recalled. "I looked up and saw a smiling face and realized there was a pilot still in it.

"This is a miracle," he added. "He is a lucky man. I'm glad there was a happy ending."

While suspended upside down in the cockpit, Warren could not see his rescuers, but was able to talk on his airplane radio to people on the ground and in the control tower, said a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

The accident knocked out power to nearby Jorgensen Steel and 2,500 Seattle City Light customers next to the airfield, according to City Light. It said power was restored to all but a handful of customers by 6:45 a.m.

Seattle Fire Chief James Sewell was at the scene, coordinating the rescue attempt, which he called unique.

"We don't get planes hanging from power lines too often," he said. Also at the scene were members of the department's technical rescue team, trained to deal with rescues involving such things as aircraft, skyscrapers, bridges, trenches, cave-ins and collapsed buildings.

Mark Kinney, a Boeing machinist, said he witnessed the accident.

"I've never seen a plane that low before," Kinney said. "I saw the sparks flying (from the power line), and he was hanging there."

A crowd of Boeing workers gathered near the crash site on East Marginal Way South near South 81st Place, about 200 yards north of the Boeing Field flight tower.

According to FAA records, Warren has a commercial pilot's license with an instrument rating and is a certified flight instructor.

He has been flying for about 14 years. He and a neighbor, Bob Packett, own the plane.

Retired from the Navy, Warren has been working since last fall for Duwamish Shipyard on Harbor Island. He commutes to Boeing Field from the privately owned Apex Air Park, a couple of miles from Silverdale, Packett said.

The flight from the air park to Boeing Field - about 19 miles - typically takes 10 to 15 minutes, Packett said. Warren's usual route would be to fly over the south end of Kitsap County, then over the north end of Vashon Island and over White Center, heading directly into Boeing Field.

Anderson of the NTSB said it was unclear to the crew in the tower whether Warren's plane actually touched down this morning or was just near the ground when it veered into the power line. Warren had been advised of other air traffic as he approached the airstrip, Anderson added.

During the four hours the plane dangled from the line, operations at Boeing Field were limited so that wake turbulence from landing and departing aircraft did not disturb it. Large aircraft were prohibited until after the rescue, said FAA spokesman Tim Pile.

Aircraft-wake turbulence is similar to the wake of a boat in the water. It's caused primarily by a plane's wingtips, each of which creates an invisible swirl of trailing wind - essentially a small, horizontal tornado.

The wake vortexes of a jetliner are sufficient to flip a small plane in flight. Pilots are trained to avoid the likely path of wake turbulence when landing or taking off behind large aircraft. But rising or falling air or prevailing winds can cause vortexes to drift.

Seattle Times staff reporter Nancy Bartley contributed to this report. --------------------------------------------------------.

Down to the wire: pilot's rescue

While the pilot of a Cessna 150 was attempting to land at Boeing Field, the plane veered up and became entangled in power lines, hanging by one wheel 50 feet above East Marginal Way South. His rescue, taking four hours, involved crews on cherry pickers and cranes. Here is what happened:

5:45 a.m.: Plane entangled upside-down in wire, dangling from one wheel. 8:40 a.m.: Safety line, attached to overhead crane, is secured around Cessna's propeller. Later, second safety line is wrapped around fuselage, attached to second crane. 9:30 a.m.: Pilot opens passenger door. 9:35 a.m.: Firefighter in cherry picker passes safety harness to pilot, who puts it on, passes ends to rescuer, then disconnects his seat strap. 9:40 a.m.: Pilot slides legs, one at a time, out door, braces one foot on rescuer's knee and steps onto cherry-picker platform.