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Downed plane removed from snow pile

BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP — Aircraft mechanics Monday removed a small plane that made an emergency landing in a farm field Saturday night.

Steve Myers, of Myers Aviation in Oshkosh, was at the scene off Bloomfield Road near Eastside Road, where the plane was stuck in the snow.

The engine of the Cessna 172 quit as pilot Brendt Bowen flew over Genoa City. Bowen was on his way from Aurora, Ill., to Green Bay, where he is a flight instructor, police said.

Myers and two mechanics Monday pulled the airplane from a snow bank with a pickup truck, siphoned the plane's fuel and removed its wings.

Moving a small airplane stuck in a field is nothing new for the crew.

"We do this about 10 to 15 times a year," mechanic Kelly Samples said.

Myers said it normally takes about five hours to remove a plane's wings and get it ready to be moved to his shop in Oshkosh. Myers said his mechanics are expected to fix the Cessna 172.

They pulled the plane onto a trailer before towing it away.

Officials from the Federal Aviation Administration were in Bloomfield Township on Sunday, trying to determine what forced the single-engine plane to make an emergency landing at about 8 p.m. Saturday.

Bloomfield Township Police officer Craig Rasmussen was dealing with a traffic crash on Bloomfield Road near Eastside Road when the plane went down in a nearby field.

"He (the pilot) was just flying along and had an engine failure, saw my emergency lights and decided to attempt an emergency landing," Rasmussen said. "He figured there'd be help right away."

The pilot was alone on the plane walked away with no major injuries but was taken to a Burlington hospital as a precaution.

The airplane's wings and propeller were damaged.