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Plane crashes into Orcutt strawberry field

April 4, 2015

A small plane crash-landed into a strawberry field in Orcutt on Saturday afternoon.

plane strawberryShortly before noon, a man attempted to land the Piper Cherokee Arrow in a field near Clark Avenue and Highway 101 after experiencing mechanical failure.

A father, his son, and the son’s fiancee were on board. The father, who was piloting the plane, sustained minor injuries. His passengers were not injured.

The investigation is ongoing. The pilot’s identity was not disclosed.


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I picture some old farmer running out and yelling, “GET OUTTA MAH STRAWBERRIES!”


That silliness aside, it was a remarkably good emergency landing!


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Appears he did an admirable job ditching the aircraft. The prop appears undamaged which will eliminate having to magnaflux inspect the engine components (very expensive). Not sure about the main landing gear, but the nose-wheel is toast.


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Where is the landing gear? Doesn’t seem to be down, and maybe this is part of the cause to land in the fields instead of putting others at risk at the airport?


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If he landed with wheels down he would have flipped instantly at high speed probly

killed everyone

Under the conditions, that was a perfect landing.


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Obviously, one would not extend landing gear in this situation. The gear is probably just fine.


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C’mon CCN, the pilot did not “attempt to land”; from the picture, he executed

a perfect off-field emergency landing…


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Any landing that you walk away from is a good landing. Great decision by pilot to pick this field and make what looks like a perfect emergency landing.

This may be why you shouldn’t build house along the flight path of the SLO airport.


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This was not a “crash”, it was a perfecty executed off-airport emergency landing. The aircraft may even be salvageable. The pilot did an excellent job.


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Any time that a pilot is forced to bring down a plane when he didn’t want to bring it down is a crash. This was a crash; a forced landing.


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Call it a “well-executed survivable emergency landing.” A “perfect” one would have been a wheels down soft field landing executed on a dirt or paved surface with no damage to the aircraft. Something other than skidding into an agricultural field. My instructor always said the first thing upon loss of power was “pick a field and turn toward it” even before switching tanks, and he meant a suitable off airport landing area, dirt road, highway, etc., not belly into a farmer’s field.


However, I wasn’t there, probably would have freaked and not done any better than this guy, to be honest. So I’m merely quibbling and splitting hairs with the use of the word “perfect” posted above. Armchair Monday Morning piloting, all I can do after “losing the medical”.


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Looks like a perfectly good emergency landing to me. Kudos to the pilot.


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Let me glide you down…..to…..


Strawberrrrrry Fields….


Alternate Landing Field…….


Nothing to get hurt about…..


Strawberry Fields……. Forever…….


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You’ve lived up to your moniker!


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Let me take you down cause I’m going to, strawberry fields. Nothing is real and nothing to get hung up about; strawberry fields forever.


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