(WMC) – The small plane that went missing around 11 a.m. on Wednesday was found crashed in a wooded area two hours later.
"I really don't understand how he could survive something like that. People are resilient. It just wasn't his time," said pilot Ben Baker, who helped in the search
According to the Tipton County sheriff, the pilot's name is Kent Wingate, 62. Firefighters on the scene say Wingate was unconscious, but his heart rate and blood pressure were stable. He was taken to Regional Medical Center in critical condition.
Wingate and his Piper Archer single engine plane were found near the Hatchie River in Lauderdale County.
The plane went missing as it prepared to land at Covington Municipal Airport. The airport's manager said that Wingate told him he was out of fuel and was going to land the plane; it never landed.
Images from Chopper 5 show the plane wedged in thick trees about two miles north of the airport. The crash site was located by tracking the emergency signal being transmitted from the plane.
"It was so thick back there in the area of the backwater ... Some of the slews, the foliage really thick," said Tipton County Sheriff Pancho Chumley.
A boater on the Hatchie River was flagged down by emergency personnel to take them across the river to the wreckage.
Wingate was flying into town for a funeral. He retired from the United States Air Force where he was an aeronautical engineer.
.According to our NBC affiliate, WDTN, Wingate lives in Xenia, Ohio, which is a suburb of Dayton. He works at Sinclair Community College.
"Kent Wingate is the chair of the Aviation Technology department," Sinclair spokesman Adam Murka said in a written statement. "
Copyright 2014 WMC Action News 5. All rights reserved.
When Kent left Dayton Wright Brothers airport on Wednesday morning he had calculated his fuel to include the average 20 knot headwind to Covington, TN.
He stated he would have 13 gallons left in his tanks when he landed which would provide approx. 1.5 hours of available fuel remaining. He topped of the airplane before departure. He flew 3.9 hours at an average fuel burn of 8.5 gallons an hour.
As anyone who’s flown the older Piper aircraft know, the fuel gauges are usually worthless below 1/2 tanks.
So what gives here - & why is this narrative is typical.
159 Piper Pa28's & 18 Fatalities as a Result of Fuel Starvation
159 Piper Pa28's & 18 Fatalities as a Result of Fuel Starvation
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Is the FAA and NTSB doing their job or are they just on their way to the crash site to investigate, According to the NTSB, why bother.
"I think that there are things that should never happen, really the easy things...," NTSB Chairperson Hersman said. "And I think that among the things in the bucket that are easy ... fuel starvation. How many times do our investigators need to investigate an accident like that."
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