http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/187403.php
Pastors from Tucson, pilot survive fiery landing of small plane
By Dan Joling
Associated Press
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 06.13.2007
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The two new pastors of a church in Kake and their pilot escaped injury after a fire broke out in their small commuter airplane as it left the southeast Alaska community.
The L.A.B. Flying Service pilot turned the airplane around and landed Monday on the Kake runway. Fire consumed the single-engine Cherokee Six plane just seconds after the three left the wreckage.
"We're still reeling from this thing," passenger Terrance "Terry" Watkins, 65, said Wednesday from his home in Tucson, Ariz. "I'll be honest. I thought we were ready to go."
So much smoke filled the cabin, he and his wife could not see pilot Rich Anderson seated 2 feet in front of them in the cabin. But Anderson managed to find the runway, land the aircraft, kick open the co-pilot door and help them out, they said.
"He was one sharp kid," Nita Watkins, 64, said. "He's only 33 years old."
The Watkins' were wrapping up their first visit to Kake, a community of 536 on Kupreanof Island 95 miles southwest of Juneau.
Both are ordained Assembly of God ministers with a long history in Alaska, starting in Cordova in 1973. They have served at churches in Nuiqsut on Alaska's North Slope, plus Anchorage, Fairbanks and Kaktovik.
More recently, they worked as chaplains in a Tucson senior community but wanted to return north and began considering the Kake church.
They spent two weeks on the island community and on Monday, prepared to return to Tucson to wrap up business and pick up their 4-pound Chihuahua, Precious. Terry carried his camera, intending to take aerial pictures of Kake on their way to Juneau.
He never got the chance.
The plane took off, cleared trees at the end of the runway and flew out over the waters of Keku Strait when the couple noticed something terribly wrong.
"I said, 'What is this smoke?'" Nita said. "About that time, the pilot made a turn."
Within 15 seconds, white smoke had saturated the cabin, blocking their view.
"It was so full, we could not breathe," she said. "That was the hardest part, getting our breath. Another few seconds and we would have been gone."
The Watkins' held hands and prayed, almost certain they would not survive.
The plane passed over a home under construction. A man working on the home told the Watkins' he saw flames shooting out of the bottom of the Cessna.
Anderson, the pilot, told the couple later he also could not see out his cockpit window. But he nursed the aircraft back to land, spotted the runway out his side window and put the plane down.
"He said he knew it was down there somewhere, so he just crash landed," Nita said.
The landing was not smooth.
"We really thought we were going to flip over and over because of the way we landed," she said.
Instead, "God's angels were encamped around us," she said.
Anderson unlatched and kicked open the copilot's door, got out and pulled Terry Watkins out. Watkins in turn pulled his wife out onto the wing as the pilot sprayed the plane with a fire extinguisher. Anderson yelled a short instruction as fuel poured onto the runway.
"He said, "Run! Get out of there!'" Nita said.
Terry ran to the side of the runway and had the presence of mind to shoot a photo showing smoke billowing from the plane. He shot another 24 seconds later with the plane engulfed by fire.
Kake emergency responders put the couple on oxygen and rushed them to the community clinic to check their vital signs.
They didn't stay long. They still had to get to Tucson.
L.A.B sent over its chief pilot in a twin-engine aircraft and he flew them to Juneau, where they caught their scheduled Alaska Airlines flight to Arizona.
Nita said they told clinic workers she had no hesitation boarding a plane a couple hours after nearly dying.
"Sure," she said. "We're either going to be here or in heaven. It's OK."
Larry Lewis, a National Transportation Safety Board air safety investigator, said the agency is deciding whether to travel to Kake or move wreckage to Juneau where there are more resources for tearing down engines.
Eric Bennett, L.A.B. director of operations, said he could not speculate on the cause of the fire but a focus will be on the forward baggage compartment, a bin that runs the width of the plane about 14 inches deep between the pilot and the fire wall of the engine compartment.
Both the pilot and the crew of a fishing boat below heard "a fairly loud explosion" just before fire broke out, he said.
The compartment carried the only baggage, including the Watkins' laptop computer.
Bennett said Anderson retained power and did not "crash" the plane. A 4-inch square side vent helped push smoke away but he confirmed that Anderson had limited forward visibility when he set the airplane down.
"Mr. Anderson made a very quick assessment of his situation and immediately did what was the proper thing to do," Bennett said.
It was the first in-flight fire in L.A.B.'s 51-year history, Bennett said.
