News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
A twin-engine Apache PA-23 airplane that made a forced landing in Metolius Meadows Saturday, August 23, continued its odyssey last week.
Plane owner Holbrook Maslen and some local friends towed the plane behind a pickup truck from Camp Sherman on backroads over Green Ridge to the Sisters airport on Tuesday, August 26.
Maslen decided to tow the plane out instead of attempting a take-off from the meadow amid houses and trees.
According to Jefferson County Deputy Dave Blann, who escorted the plane, the trip took almost four hours. Maslen and his crew took the plane over Green Ridge on the red cinder Forest Service Road 1120, then linked up with Indian Ford Road, which they followed to Camp Polk Road and the airport.
They took the wing tips off the plane, and maneuvered it on its landing gear on the long and circuitous journey.
"It was interesting, but (Road 1120 is) the widest road over the ridge," Deputy Blann told The Nugget. "Instead of doing the tight stuff with the pickup truck, we just unhooked it and did it by hand. We did a lot of that."
The plane's pilot, Robert Blasco Fratti, is a friend of Maslen's and a National Guard helicopter pilot. He reportedly put the plane down when it developed engine trouble coming over the Cascades from Aurora.
"It could have been carburetor ice; it was just precautionary," Maslen told The Nugget. According to Maslen, no engine quit, but one was running rough.
Maslen said Fratti told him, "'I saw that field and thought, boy, that's a good place to land.'
"And I thanked him," Maslen said.
According to Maslen, Fratti and a mechanic, who did not wish to be identified, were flying the plane to Boise, where Maslen, a pilot and collector of aircraft, plans to use it for instruction. Maslen said he had lent the plane to a friend in Portland a couple of years ago.
The plane was not damaged in the landing, but the leading edge of the port wing was dented when it banged into a tree while being towed.
Maslen parked the plane at Sisters Eagle Air, where he plans to repair it and then fly it to Boise.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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