Student pilot escapes injury in Turner crash

TURNER – A 60-year-old student pilot walked away with minor injuries after his single-engine plane clipped tree branches and crashed during an attempted landing Sunday at Twitchell’s Airport.

“I had the speed down to where I wanted it, but came in on the high side,” Jerry Crute told the Lewiston Sun Journal. “I should have done another go-around.”

The Topsham man’s 1971 Cessna Skyhawk apparently was demolished, but Crute suffered only a scratch on the bridge of his nose and a few scrapes on the knuckles.

Crute had taken off from the Wiscasset airport earlier in the day and had stopped at airports in Bangor and Augusta. Turner was the next-to-last stop on a 150-mile flight that was to have ended back in Wiscasset.

Crute has been learning to fly since 1999 and said the flight was his final flying requirement before a written pilot’s license test.

He said he still plans to get his license, but won’t be climbing into another cockpit anytime soon.

“I’ll take a break – put it that way,” he said.