This pilot was low by a few thousand feet. 
There is a huge elevation rise on approach from the direction in which he was coming in. There was very dense fog here today. TRUST THE GAUGES!!!!
Pictures....
http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051008/NEWS01/510080346/1002
LANSING - A single engine aircraft crashed on a residential street Friday, although the injured pilot, a New York City furniture designer, walked away from the accident.
At about 4 p.m., police responded to 22 Reach Run Road, where a 1982 Mooney aircraft registered to James W. Evanson, of New York City, lay upside down on the lawn after hitting several trees and a house on its way down.
According to Tompkins County Sheriff's Capt. Mark Dresser, Evanson, the pilot, was approaching Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport from the west but had been flying too low. The weather was rainy, with low-hanging clouds in the area at the time of the crash.
Evanson, 59, was transported to Cayuga Medical Center by Bangs Ambulance. He was discharged from the emergency room Friday evening, according to the hospital.
Elizabeth Mirrsepassi owns the home where the plane crashed. She was home with her child when the machine hit.
“I didn't see it, but I heard and felt it,” Mirrsepassi, 37, said.
The aircraft made a 4-foot wide gash on the side of her house, Mirrsepassi said. It also tore off the downspout and gutter on her house and tore down trees and landscaping. Damage could also be seen where the plane seemed to have skidded across on the lawn, she said.
Neighbor Linda Fuchs said she was home when the aircraft went down, and called 911 before heading out to investigate. She said she sent her 15 year-old daughter Christine to check the pilot's condition.
“We're very grateful that this turned out well - that the pilot was able to get out under his own power, that no one else was hurt and none of the homes were seriously damaged,” she said.
Fuchs recalled sitting in the office on the second floor of her home when she heard a noise. She said she looked up and saw the plane flying below the window, about 10 to 12 feet off the ground and coming closer to the house. By her estimate, the plane passed just 15 feet from the corner of her house, based on a strip of matted grass nearby.
Remnants of Friday's accident were strewn in Fuchs' backyard, including the plane's front wheel and windshield.
Mirrsepassi complained about low flying planes being commonplace in the neighborhood, which is several miles from the Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport. Evanson appears to have come down roughly two miles from a runway.
“I think the planes fly too low to the houses here,” Mirrsepassi said. “I'm not surprised that something like this happened.”
Dave St. George, an experienced pilot and manager of the nearby East Hill Flight Club, was quick to observe that plane crashes are a comparatively rare occurrence compared with other calamities — such as traffic accidents — and that, he said, includes the track record for small planes such as Evanson's.
“Part of it's luck, part of it's skill that (he) missed those houses,” opined St. George, who's been flying for 32 years. He was among those taking pictures at the scene.
A database of aircraft registrations on the FAA's Web site listed Evanson as the plane's registered owner. A woman who answered the telephone at Evanson's Manhattan number Friday evening confirmed that the plane's pilot was Evanson, a New York-based architect, artist and furniture designer.
According to the Web site for Manhattan-based furniture firm Evanson Studios, Evanson has been a leader in the international “functional art” movement, and his work has been exhibited worldwide since 1979. The corporate biography adds that Evanson has been a critic and lectured at Yale University, Pratt Institute and The Rhode Island School of Design, and has been a furniture instructor at SUNY Purchase and Parsons School of Design.
The Federal Aviation Administration was sending its own investigators to the scene Friday evening, Dresser said.
There is a huge elevation rise on approach from the direction in which he was coming in. There was very dense fog here today. TRUST THE GAUGES!!!!Pictures....
http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051008/NEWS01/510080346/1002
LANSING - A single engine aircraft crashed on a residential street Friday, although the injured pilot, a New York City furniture designer, walked away from the accident.
At about 4 p.m., police responded to 22 Reach Run Road, where a 1982 Mooney aircraft registered to James W. Evanson, of New York City, lay upside down on the lawn after hitting several trees and a house on its way down.
According to Tompkins County Sheriff's Capt. Mark Dresser, Evanson, the pilot, was approaching Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport from the west but had been flying too low. The weather was rainy, with low-hanging clouds in the area at the time of the crash.
Evanson, 59, was transported to Cayuga Medical Center by Bangs Ambulance. He was discharged from the emergency room Friday evening, according to the hospital.
Elizabeth Mirrsepassi owns the home where the plane crashed. She was home with her child when the machine hit.
“I didn't see it, but I heard and felt it,” Mirrsepassi, 37, said.
The aircraft made a 4-foot wide gash on the side of her house, Mirrsepassi said. It also tore off the downspout and gutter on her house and tore down trees and landscaping. Damage could also be seen where the plane seemed to have skidded across on the lawn, she said.
Neighbor Linda Fuchs said she was home when the aircraft went down, and called 911 before heading out to investigate. She said she sent her 15 year-old daughter Christine to check the pilot's condition.
“We're very grateful that this turned out well - that the pilot was able to get out under his own power, that no one else was hurt and none of the homes were seriously damaged,” she said.
Fuchs recalled sitting in the office on the second floor of her home when she heard a noise. She said she looked up and saw the plane flying below the window, about 10 to 12 feet off the ground and coming closer to the house. By her estimate, the plane passed just 15 feet from the corner of her house, based on a strip of matted grass nearby.
Remnants of Friday's accident were strewn in Fuchs' backyard, including the plane's front wheel and windshield.
Mirrsepassi complained about low flying planes being commonplace in the neighborhood, which is several miles from the Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport. Evanson appears to have come down roughly two miles from a runway.
“I think the planes fly too low to the houses here,” Mirrsepassi said. “I'm not surprised that something like this happened.”
Dave St. George, an experienced pilot and manager of the nearby East Hill Flight Club, was quick to observe that plane crashes are a comparatively rare occurrence compared with other calamities — such as traffic accidents — and that, he said, includes the track record for small planes such as Evanson's.
“Part of it's luck, part of it's skill that (he) missed those houses,” opined St. George, who's been flying for 32 years. He was among those taking pictures at the scene.
A database of aircraft registrations on the FAA's Web site listed Evanson as the plane's registered owner. A woman who answered the telephone at Evanson's Manhattan number Friday evening confirmed that the plane's pilot was Evanson, a New York-based architect, artist and furniture designer.
According to the Web site for Manhattan-based furniture firm Evanson Studios, Evanson has been a leader in the international “functional art” movement, and his work has been exhibited worldwide since 1979. The corporate biography adds that Evanson has been a critic and lectured at Yale University, Pratt Institute and The Rhode Island School of Design, and has been a furniture instructor at SUNY Purchase and Parsons School of Design.
The Federal Aviation Administration was sending its own investigators to the scene Friday evening, Dresser said.
