3 planes, 2 crashes, 1 day, 0 fatalities

PALMER — A plane crash Saturday knocked out power for part of the Springer Loop system for about six hours and closed the Palmer Airport, but injured no one, authorities said.

The plane, a Piper PA-12 piloted by Joshua D. Morris, 37, was making touch-and-go runs about 9 p.m., Jan. 31 when it began to lose power, according to National Transportation Safety Board investigators, Palmer Police, and city officials. Morris was maneuvering his plane to land on airport-owned property near the golf course, when his plane’s landing gear clipped a power line, according to investigator Chris Shaver.

“His wheel clipped a power line, and that kind of put him into a harder landing than he wanted,” Shaver said.

Investigators say they intend to release a report by the end of the week. Officals don’t know yet what caused the plane to go fail, Shaver added.

The plane’s owners worked to remove the craft Sunday and Monday, officials said.

Morris apparently walked away from the crash site uninjured, though emergency responders were initially unsure whether it was safe to respond because of the involvement of power lines, according to MEA spokeswoman Julie Estey.

“I wouldn’t say it was a short outage,” she said.

The outage affected about 300 customers, and service had been restored by about 3 a.m., Sunday, Estey said.

The airport also closed for about an hour as a precautionary measure while officials inspected the runway, according to airport manager Jeffery Combs.

The pilot wasn’t the owner of the plane, but the owners had arrived on the scene Monday morning, Combs said.

“They’re recovering the aircraft this morning,” he said. “They’re out there taking it apart right now.”

The Palmer crash was the second crash involving three aircraft in just under eight hours in the Valley Saturday. None of the incidents involved a reported death, though a private pilot involved in the earlier crash was seriously injured, according to reports.

Palmer Police and Palmer Fire Department personnel responded to the crash.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.