Student pilot credits
his training for safe landing

WAILUKU » A Maui student pilot said good flight training helped him to land his plane safely in a pasture after developing engine problems over East Maui.

But Jeffrey Marsh, 41, was still a little hard on himself, saying he should have done a better job of landing the plane, whose tail was damaged when it crashed through a barbed wire fence.

The Kihei resident said he had been practicing short landings in a single-engine, twin-seat Cessna 152 at the Hana Airport before he took off for a flight to Kahului Sunday morning.

Authorities said they received a call from Marsh saying he had engine problems and had made an emergency landing.

"I felt I was well prepared for the circumstances," Marsh said yesterday. "I'm glad I'm not hurt."

The flight tower in Kahului called authorities at 11:01 a.m. Sunday to notify them that a pilot in distress reported having engine problems, fire officials said. They launched a rescue helicopter from Kahului.

Marsh said he turned the airplane around and was headed back to Hana, but knew he could not reach the airport.

He said as part of the training with Maui Aviators flight school, student pilots continually scan the coast to pick alternative landing sites.

Marsh said he spotted a field along the coastline in Lower Nahiku and approached it from the sea.

Marsh said the field looked flat, but as he came upon it he saw it had a slope, a lot of rocks and was surrounded by dense forest.

He said he bounced through the field and ran into a barbed wire fence, coming to rest in the brush about 10 to 15 feet beyond the pasture's fence line.

Marsh said the fence hooked the small plane and acted as a resistance line, similar to the way aircraft are stopped on a Navy carrier deck.

Marsh said he made sure no fuel was leaking from the plane before he walked to a nearby house to call authorities.

Federal officials said the airplane's tail was damaged, which was upsetting to Marsh.

"I thought I could have done a better job," he said.

The airplane, manufactured in 1978, is owned by Maui Aviators.

The National Transportation Safety Board is expected to conduct an investigation, said Donn Walker, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman.