Monday, March 21, 2016
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THE GAZETTE, EMPORIA, KANSAS
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Page 3
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TEENS SURVIVE AFTER AIRPLANE CRASHES ON KANSAS GOLF COURSE
FERNANDO SALAZAR THE WICHITA EAGLE
Authorities check out a plane that crashed on the 14th hole at Tallgrass Country Club on Friday afternoon in Wichita.
By Dion Lefler
[email protected]
Nikki Womack was talking with her daughter in
their front room Friday afternoon when they saw a
plane fly very low over their
neighbor’s house.
She ran to the back window just in time to see the
plane crash on the 14th hole
at the Tallgrass Country
Club behind the house.
“I thought maybe it
would flip, but it just hit real softly, pretty much,” she
said. “It kind of bounced
up” as it scraped through a
sand trap and came to rest
just short of the green.
Witness to the plane
crash at Tallgrass Nikki
Womack lives in a home
backing onto Tallgrass
Country Club’s golf course
and watched Friday afternoon as a plane crash-landed on the 14th fairway. She
was the first to render aid to
the teenage pilot and passenger who were injured in
the crash.
Womack ran outside to
see whether she could help,
dialing 911 on the way. The
occupants of the plane were
two teenagers.
“A younger male got out
first, and he was bleeding
from the top of his head, but
he was talking and looked
me in the eye,” she said.
“And then a girl got out behind him and she was bleeding and her eye was pretty
damaged, but she was talking and walking.
“I said ‘lay down, lay
down,’ so they both laid
down, and I had 911 on the
phone and I said ‘911’s on
their way, you’re OK, you
didn’t hit any houses, just
lay there, it’s OK, nobody
else is hurt. Just wait for
them to get here.’ ”
Wichita Police Lt. Paul
Duff said the pilot was a
17-year-old male and the
passenger was an 18-yearold female. He said the
plane was en route from
Nashville, Tenn., to Jabara
Airport, which is just northeast of the crash site.
The pilot and passenger
were transported to Wesley
Medical Center for treatment, a Sedgwick County
dispatcher said. One had
potentially serious injuries,
while the other person’s injuries were less serious.
The crash was reported
at 3:25 p.m. at the course
next to 21st and Webb
Road. Ambulances and
firetrucks were sent to the
scene, and police closed the
neighborhood to traffic as a
precaution.
The cause of the crash
is being investigated by the
Federal Aviation Administration, Duff said.
The airplane, a 1966
single-engine Mooney, is
owned by Sabris Corp.
Sabris owner David Dewhirst said the airplane was
one of his company’s rentals and was on approach for
landing at Jabara Airport.
“The report is he had an
engine failure … and could
not make it to the airport,”
Dewhirst said. “But we’ve
probably totaled an airplane.”
Denise Bennett and her
daughter Riley didn’t see
the crash, but they did hear
the engine. They’re used
to aircraft noise, living so
close to the airport for the
past six years, but they said
this time it was louder and
closer.
“It sounded like a plane
that was landing, but it also sounded like it was just
above the house,” Riley
Bennett said.
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DION LEFLER THE WICHITA EAGLE
Two people were on a small passenger plane when it went down Friday on the golf
course at Tallgrass Country Club, and both were injured, but walked away.
Mike Colestock, the golf
course superintendent, said
nobody was playing the
14th hole when the plane
came down.
He said it was lucky
the day was cold, wet and
windy after weeks of unusually good golfing weather
for this time of year.
“Nobody was around,” he
said. “I’m glad we weren’t
having a 75-degree day and
golfers out here.”
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