TOWN OF METOMEN, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A plane heading for the EAA Seaplane Base didn’t make its destination Sunday.
The pilot flying the World War II-era Piper Cub had to stick an emergency landing in a Fond du Lac County farm field, after the sea plane completely lost power.
“My first thought was that my cows were out and, as it turns out, the dispatcher said, ‘Well, there’s a plane down in your field,’” said Chris Pollack, owner of Pollack-Vu Dairy Farm, where the plane landed.
In water? Sure. Up in the sky? It goes without saying. But it’s not every day you find a plane in the middle of a farm soybean field out in the Town of Metomen.
The plane landed safely at the Pollack-Vu Dairy family farm. It was then removed by Meyers Aviation and taken to Big Green Lake, where it was later flown to Oshkosh.
“You don’t expect to find a plane parked out on your field, certainly, but there was already a truck there that was able to lift the plane up,” Pollack explained.
The 1945 Piper J3C-65 was flying in from Crystal Lake, Minnesota to the EAA Seaplane Base.
It was being flown by a 74-year-old United Kingdom man.
“To his credit, he managed to put the feet of the plane, which was an amphibious plane, basically between the rows of soybeans, so it hardly damaged anything!” said Pollack.
The pilot called the emergency landing into the Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Office almost immediately.
According to their investigation, the pilot said there was an instant loss of power, and the soybean field was the safest place to land quickly.
“The gentleman was fine,” Pollack said. “It was all apparently just a fuel-cap issue that he wasn’t getting fuel to the engine.”
We tried to find the pilot at the EAA Seaplane Base and thought we were in luck. We spotted the plane that clearly made yet another safe landing, but it wouldn’t stay still for long
Just as we arrived, the pilot and that plane were shortly back in the sky again.
“I believe he had smooth sailing, hopefully, the rest of the way, but he was coming all the way from the United Kingdom, so” Pollack said.
Fortunately, there were no injuries and hardly any damage was done to the plane or Pollack’s soybean field.
