The day a plane and a chopper met in a Bloomington hay field
By Correne Martin
The morning of May 22 started like many other Sundays for Marty Fischer.
The 25-year-old was in the farm field that he and his parents, Todd and Julie, rent along Birch Road in rural Bloomington. He was merging hay, driving along, minding his own business, when he suddenly spotted a plane flying lower than usual, coming from the south.
“I just thought it was taking those aerial pictures you see in people’s farm houses of their properties,” Marty said.
So, he continued on working the land.
“Next thing I knew, there it was really low,” he said. “I just kept driving and, a little later, I see it bouncing along on the ground in the field.”
He later found out, the single engine plane had made an emergency landing there after having troubles.
“When the plane came to a stop, and I saw two men get out and high-five mid-air, and then give each other a hug, I knew something must’ve happened,” Marty said.
As it turned out, those two men were pilot Charles Diggins, 61, from Middleboro, Mass., and Warren Roberts, 72, of Makawao, Hawaii.
They were flying from Poplar Grove, Ill., to Livingston, Mont., when problems arose and Diggins had to land the aircraft safely in the hay field. There were no damages to the plane and no injuries, according to Grant County authorities.
“They told me they saw some lines in the field. The windrows guided them in,” Marty noted. “Had the field not been cut—that rye was a little over 3 feet tall—it would’ve wrapped around their wheels and nose-dived them.”
In addition to the cut rye, conditions were about as perfect as any pilot would want them to be in a situation needing an emergency landing. Marty said the ground was dry, creating a concrete “runway-like” surface. Also, the ground was unworked, so the plane’s wheels didn’t dig in and start a nose dive either.
Once local law enforcement responded to assess the situation, and made reports for the FAA, the Fischers got pictures of the plane in front of the chopper in the field.
“We’ll never take a picture like that again,” Marty said.
The Fischers arranged for the 1,100-pound aircraft to be rolled and loaded onto a flatbed trailer, right there in the field. Then, that afternoon, they received a police escort, by the Grant and Crawford County Sheriff’s Departments and Prairie du Chien Police Department, to Prairie du Chien Municipal Airport.
“They stayed for three days waiting for a part,” Julie Fischer said. “They had purchased the plane from a guy in Illinois. He went into Chicago, picked up the part and brought it all the way here to be fixed.”
She also shared that, when Diggins and Roberts were testing the plane out before heading out to Montana again, they ended up making another emergency landing back at the airport in Prairie.
“They originally thought it was the carburetor, but the main reason ended up being a valve that was sticking on the fuel tank that was shutting off fuel to the engine,” Marty explained.
The Fischers took the men out for dinner while they were here and got to know them all the more.
They learned that Roberts had 40 years of piloting under his belt and Diggins 20 years.
“We made some new friends, and someone we can visit in Hawaii,” Julie laughed.
Marty added, “It was quite the experience for everybody.”
