Late Night Crash Wasn't Just A Bad Dream
The last thing he
remembered was seeing the lights of Detroit Lakes, MN in the
distance. The next thing he knew, he was in a cornfield, injured,
alone in the darkness and unable to move. Three long hours passed
before help arrived.
When Joshua Oreck got up at about 0800 on July 7th of 2004, he
knew it'd be a busy day at the University of North Dakota. He had a
class at 1000, a test in Aviation Meteorology, and then a long
cross-country flight.
He completed his flight planning, and went over the plan with
his instructor. He was all set to go after preflighting his
PA-28-161, but the plane wouldn't start. He was able to switch to
N248ND and prepare it for flight. After amending his flight
plan, he departed from GFK at 1815, arriving at Airlake Airport
(LVN) at 2030. He continued on to Crystal City (MIC) at 2130
and refueled both the plane and himself.
As pilots often do, he met with a friend, and enjoyed a BBQ
dinner before heading for home at 2355. After climbing to 4,500
feet msl, he opened his flight plan with flight service. He
contacted flight service while near his first checkpoint, St Cloud,
MN. He missed his second checkpoint, but continued on using the GPS
and VOR to keep track of his position. He saw the lights of Detroit
Lakes.
A farmer living near Waubun, MN heard and saw an airplane
circling overhead. Then he heard the crash. He could not see the
crash site because of rolling hills, ravines, knee high corn, and
wheat, but he notified authorities. It took almost 3 � hours
to find the injured pilot, who was then flown by helicopter to the
hospital.
According to the NTSB Report, radar data indicated that N248ND
was flying on a northwesterly heading until 0126. Radar data then
showed the aircraft entered descending left turns, completing 6 1/2
turns before it was lost from radar at 0133 at less than 400 feet
agl.
The debris path was oriented on a 178 degree heading and was
about 342 feet long from the initial impact point to where the main
wreckage was located. The left wing had separated from the fuselage
and was about 190 feet from the initial impact point.
In the summer, the suns stays out until 2130, so UND students
wishing to complete night lessons must wait until 2200. The NTSB
report revealed that Oreck was working on lesson five in his
commercial/instrument program, which required a three leg
cross-country flight with one leg of at least 250 nautical miles.
In addition, he needed to log 5 hours of night flying over the
course of lessons four through eight.
The factual report seems to support the theory that Oreck fell
asleep in the cockpit. "First, I should not have taken off thinking
that I might get tired. I should have requested flight following to
keep my attention. Possibly [I] should have recognized symptoms of
fatigue and possibly state of consciousness, and landed before
losing consciousness," said Oreck to the NTSB.
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