Pilot Admitted He Did Not Want To Tell The FAA About The Mishap

A property owner in upstate New York came across something unusual on a recent Saturday morning. At the edge of their 40-acre estate in Altamont, NY was a Piper Clipper hanging from some trees ... with nobody inside.

Eugene DiCerbo called the Guilderland, NY police after noticing the airplane, who notified the FAA, who tracked down the owner of the plane ... 75-year-old Fred Jackson. A week before the plane was found in the trees, Jackson had been flying it from Madison County to the airport in Altamont when he had experience engine trouble and overshot the runway, according to Police Sgt. Michael A. Mintte.

The website timesunion.com reports that Jackson said he had built the airplane almost entirely from scratch ... using just a frame he had bought in 2000. The restoration had cost him about $100,000, and he intended to show it off at a Piper fly-in in Lock Haven, PA, where it had originally been manufactured.

The flight that resulted in the accident was the first for the restored aircraft. Jackson said the engine failed and he "didn't have the feel" for the airplane, and wound up in the trees. He was not injured, and climbed down out of the trees. He said he notified a neighbor of the DiCerbos, but didn't want to report the incident to the FAA.

Jackson said he had every intention of getting the airplane down from the trees, but didn't do it right away. A decision he now regrets. But he plans to repair the airplane and hopes to see it flying again.

(Piper Clipper pictured in file photo. Not accident airplane)

FMI: www.ntsb.gov