Pilot recalls crash details

Pilot recalls crash details
Originally published Saturday, Oct. 30, 2004

By Nadia Malik
Daily Herald Staff Writer

His plane was dropping 500 feet a minute, and Bernie Hogan knew he had only one minute until he hit ground.
Police had blocked off nearby Milwaukee Road in Buffalo Grove, but the plane couldn't make it that far.
Hogan knew his only chance not to hit any cars or pedestrians was a gap in traffic on Deerfield Parkway.
"I would never be able to sleep if I hit someone," he said.
A day after his plane crashed on the road in Buffalo Grove Thursday, Hogan recounted those four minutes in the sky from his bed at Northwest Community Hospital, awaiting surgery for his broken leg.
Mostly, Hogan felt grateful to the people who helped him: the Buffalo Grove police and fire departments, people on the scene who lent him a cell phone and offered help, and those in the control towers who helped orchestrate the landing.
Although many of the details are fuzzy for him, Hogan does remember that about 15 minutes after taking off from Palwaukee Municipal Airport in Wheeling Thursday evening, he heard a loud bang from the engine.
"The oil pressure dropped off, and the engine came to an abrupt stop," he said.
Hogan radioed Chicago Approach, which gave him directions back to Palwaukee. Because the plane wouldn't get that far, the control tower asked Buffalo Grove police to close part of Milwaukee Avenue.
The blocked intersection turned out to be too far away as well, but a light had just turned red on Deerfield Parkway. Hogan saw that a 600-foot section of the westbound lanes was free of traffic, so he turned the plane around.
"The road had telephone poles on the right side and a row of trees down the median, so I knew the trees would catch me from going in the eastbound lanes, where there was traffic," Hogan said.
He hit a light pole and ended up with the plane wrapped around a tree.
Hogan doesn't remember the exact circumstances of his crash at about 7:15 p.m., but he remembers getting out of the plane as fast as he could in case of an explosion.
"There was a little panic when I was trying to figure out why my leg was stuck on the ground," Hogan said.
Both bones in his right leg had broken, and when crews arrived they found him sitting on one of the wings of the plane, unable to walk farther.
Surgery for his leg was scheduled for late Friday afternoon. Hogan also received light burns on his chest and some bruises.
He had owned the plane, a Piper PA24, for about 20 years. He started flying at the age of 9 under the supervision of his dad, a flight instructor.
Hogan, an independent contractor who works in sales with hospitals, spends about 300 hours a year in his plane.
Hogan was on his way home to Evansville, Ind., after he had just dropped off his business associate Linda Frank, a Glenview resident.
He plans to buy another plane as soon as he gets out of the hospital Monday.
He said his wife, Heather, and two children are a little wary of his flying again but said they understand his need to get another plane.
Meanwhile, his old plane remains in a hangar while the Federal Aviation Administration investigates. Tony Molinaro, a spokesman, said it could take up to eight weeks to determine the crash's cause.