Plane crash blocks Innisfil road

News

Posted By Ian McInroy, Barrie Examiner

Posted 1 month ago

There is a tiny airstrip just off the 6th Line in Innisfil – little more than a length of farmer's field, that is kept mowed and clear.

Neighbours are used to seeing small aircraft take off and land, but they were surprised on July 26 to find a Piper Cherokee 140 sitting in the westbound lanes of the 6th Line, and the road blocked by police cruisers and Fire trucks.

Mike Wilson, a pilot from Trenton, was attempting to take off from the waterlogged airstrip around 1:30 p.m., when he ran into difficulties. "I couldn't get my speed up because of the damp runway," said Wilson, who has logged 1,500 hours of flight time, many of them as an instructor.

He made a last-second decision to abort the takeoff - and ended up running into the ditch, and onto the roadway, bending the nose wheels and main wheels under each wing, and one blade of the propeller. He was uninjured. "If I had kept going, I might not have been able to clear the trees" across the road, Wilson said. "It was a rough ride for about three-quarters of a second. The impact knocked off my sunglasses and headset... It was just a screw up. I can't blame anybody else."

"When he ran out of runway, he went into a ditch and up onto the roadway," said South Simcoe Police Staff Sgt. Steve Wilson. "He's very fortunate... and we're lucky there wasn't a vehicle coming along the roadway at the same time. At that time of the day (the 6th Line) is not too bad. It's not a high-volume roadway."

The rough ending to the take-off inadvertently resulted in the dispatch of a C-130 Hercules rescue aircraft from CFB Trenton, which circled the area. Pilot Wilson explained that after the crash, he forgot to turn off his emergency locator transmitter (ELT), which automatically sends out a signal to alert search and rescue.

The 6th Line east of 20 Sideroad remained closed for several hours while the Transportation Safety Board investigated.