Palmer pilot makes emergency landing on Alberta ball field

GRANDE PRAIRIE, ALBERTA, CANADA — A Palmer pilot survived an emergency landing in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada, Wednesday.

Spokesman Chris Krepski with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said a PA-14 registered to an American pilot — identified in media reports as Glen Knowlton Deal of Palmer — was flying when the Piper ran out of gas and was forced to land on a baseball diamond at South Bear Creek Park in Grande Prairie, about 4.3 miles from the Grande Prairie Airport.

Grande Prairie is a city of about 55,032 people located in northwest Alberta, Canada.

Federal Aviation Administration registry records say Deal lives in Palmer and owns a 1948 Piper PA-14 with the tail number 4279H.

Two people inside the plane were unharmed when it landed hard around 7 p.m., Aug. 13, but the aircraft sustained substantial damage, Krepski said. The safety board has concluded its review of the crash and no further action is planned, he said.

Deal and his passenger were flying from Montana to Alaska and had taken off from Red Deer, Alberta, that morning, Deal told a reporter with the Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune, Grande Prairie, Alberta. That leg of their flight was uneventful until the engine “went silent just south of the city,” during its final approach to land at the Grande Prairie Airport, he told the Herald-Tribune.

Anna and Glen Deal moved to Bozeman, Montana, from Palmer in 2011 and opened the Lockhorn Cider house there in January according to news coverage from the opening.

Contact Heather A. Resz at 352-2268 or heather.resz@frontiersman.com.