Aircraft lands among Camp Sherman homes

Chris Bone was out in the garden of her home in Metolius Meadows in Camp Sherman when she saw the plane flying low overhead and heard the engine cutting out.

Rad Dyer, who also lives in Camp Sherman, said, "I was at the end of my driveway when I heard an engine sputter. I looked up and saw the wheel of an airplane right over my head."

The twin-engine Piper Apache PA-23 landed safely between homes on the 1,600-foot-long Metolius Meadow common area.

As soon as it was on the ground, the pilot hit the brakes and dug a pair of skid marks all the way to the end of the field, where the plane came to rest 20 yards short of a horse corral.

The pilot and passenger scrambled out unhurt.

"I asked them if they were all right," said Chris Bone. "They said, 'We're pretty shaky.' I asked them if they would like a glass of water. They said, 'That'd be great.' I think they would have liked something stronger," said Bone.

Bone said the pilot told some who gathered around that one engine probably had some ice in the carburetor. The Apache, not known for single-engine performance, was losing altitude at 500 feet per minute.

From a cell phone, the pilot called the owner of the plane, who was still in Aurora, Oregon, where the flight supposedly originated.

According to Trooper Christopher Seber of the Oregon State Police, the pilot of the plane was Robert Blasco Fratti. The other man aboard was a mechanic, name unknown. Trooper Seber did not know where the plane was headed when it went down.

According to an aircraft database, PA-23 N1321P is owned by Holbrook Maslen of Carson City, Nevada.

Owner Maslen flew into Sisters airport in another Piper Apache. Deschutes County Sheriff Greg Brown, himself a pilot, took Fratti and mechanic from Camp Sherman into Sisters to meet Maslen.

Brown said that Fratti initially told him they planned to fly the plane out of the meadow. Brown asked if they had calculated whether the plane could make it out of the valley.

They had done some calculations, but not correctly, Brown determined.

"I told him they would crash, and if they survived the crash, I would petition the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) to revoke his license," said Brown.

Those in the plane's path of departure from the meadow were quite concerned, according to other area homeowners.

However, on Saturday evening, someone did take the aircraft back down the meadow, but the plane bogged down in the soft dirt and was parked.

On Monday afternoon, Jefferson County Sheriff's office in Madras had not received any official word on the incident.

No one has contacted the owner about plans for removal of the aircraft, although OSP Trooper Seber said he contacted the Federal Aviation Administration.

According to the FAA Flight Standards District office in Hillsboro, the FAA has no regulations that would prevent the plane from flying out of the meadow.

The FAA suggested that the Metolius Meadows Homeowners could prevent a departure from their property by working through Jefferson County law enforcement.