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2 Small Planes Go Down

Plane that landed on Highway 59

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2 Small Planes Go Down

By Sean O'Flaherty

EAGLE - Two small planes made emergency landings within an hour of each other Monday night. And both planes touched down at bizarre locations. One made an emergency landing on Highway 59 near Eagle. The other crashed into a swamp near Burlington. This comes just one day after another plane made an emergency landing on U.S. Highway 41 in Fond du Lac. All three are experimental planes. EAGLE An Illinois pilot was in the right place and the right time when his single-engine plane ran into problems. The pilot lost his propeller at about 3,000 feet. It just fell off, he said. He made an emergency landing in rural Waukesha County on Highway 59 in the Town of Eagle. The Luscombe Model 8A landed safely around 7 p.m., and the 49-year-old pilot seemed unfazed by the whole ordeal. The plane is registered to Thomas Moquin of Hampshire, Illinois. Scott Kessler from the Eagle Fire Department responded to the scene. He said the pilot reported that he lost his crank shaft. Kessler said the quiet Highway 59 was the perfect place to land, with no traffic and no telephone poles. The pilot and his son were on their way home from the EAA AirVenture show in Oshkosh. As for where his propeller landed - no one knows for sure. They're still looking for it. BURLINGTON The second plane came down in a swamp north of the Burlington Airport just after 8 p.m. Monday. The area is west of Honey Lake Rd. and south of County Highway FF in the Town of Rochester. Shortly after the crash, the pilot, Daniel Luke, 59, from the City of Burlington, contacted the Racine County Sheriffs Department by cell phone. Luke had to wade though waist-deep water and crawl through thick brush to reach rescuers. Luke was taken by the City of Burlington rescue squad to Memorial Hospital of Bur1ington where he was treated for minor injuries and released. Luke's plane is a home-built type, single-engine plane, called a GN-1 Air Camper. He had just taken off at the time of the crash.