The pilot of a small, two-seater aircraft, forced to make an emergency landing in a cornfield east of Sarnia last Thursday night, has already been back in the air.
Windsor Flight Club member John Cundle spoke with Blackburn News Sarnia Tuesday, as a group of his buddies worked to take the wings off Hasel (the plane) so it could be loaded onto trailers, hauled out of the field and taken back to the Rose City.
"I was up flying yesterday [Monday]," said Cundle. "I went with my chief flight instructor. We flew to Pelee Island. I love flying. This certainly doesn't deter me in any shape or form. I'll be back up there again."
Cundle said he was flying home to Windsor when the engine quit Thursday night.
"I left Windsor at about 8pm. The plan was to fly to Waterloo and then add one new landing to my airport list by landing at Centralia," said Cundle. "I didn't land at Centralia, I just did a fly over and decided to head back to Windsor. As I was heading back, my engine sputtered and came to a complete dead stop. I thought it might be [carburetor] icing, so I carried out an emergency procedure and was hoping that would help it. I went to start the engine, but as I reached for my key I hit the yoke [control wheel] down and when I did that it must have knocked loose whatever was blocking the fuel and she fired up -- but only for a few seconds and she stopped again."
Cundle said that's when he made a Mayday call to the London Flight Centre and started looking for a place to land.
He said he considered landing on Plank Rd., but was concerned for other people.
"As I was coming in I saw this roadway here and I thought that's a good wide roadway. I could probably land on that. But, as soon as I looked there, a car appeared and I thought you know what I'm not going to put somebody else in a situation because of my problem so I started to look for a field," he said.
Cundle, who is a fairly new pilot with only 245 hours, said he just got his night rating in August, so the training was still fresh in his head. He looked for the darkest area and started his descent.
"A lot of people have told me that I'm very lucky, because corn is not good to airplanes," he said. "But, I do think it was somewhat of a blessing because of the way that I landed, with the nose up and corn in the front, it kept her from flipping."
To listen to the FULL interview with pilot John Cundle click below.
[audio mp3="http://blackburnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/PILOT-JOHN-CUNDLE-FULL-INTERVIEW.mp3"][/audio]
