The "Baseball Game Crash" at Mulcahy Stadium
Anchorage, Alaska
July 31st, 2003
The Land of the Midnight Sun
The long summer
nights of Alaska mean there is seemingly more time for everything. More time
for work, and more time for play, including baseball. And it was at a home game
for the Anchorage Bucs, playing against the visiting Alaska
Goldpanners of Fairbanks, that
work and play nearly met a deadly collision of fate.
It was the top
of the third inning, with the Bucs in the field, and the Goldpanners on their
eighth at-bat, with Jeff Culpepper, a native
of Woodinville,
Washington,
edging up to the
batter’s mound. The bases were loaded, and the pitcher, Chuck Withers, was
winding up. His team may have been down 7-0, but it was still early in the
game.
Then, at
8:13 PM, the referee standing behind Culpepper waved off the pitch. A
Cessna 207 Skywagon, was descending rapidly towards the ball field, and the
crowd of over 500.
"Will Fly For Food"
A commercial
pilot with nearly 2,000 hours of flight experience, Brian Mason was a bush
pilot. Having flown for nearly six
years for Spernak Airways, Mason had flown all over Alaska, ferrying people and
payload. His fare that day was a pair of brothers from Colorado, Ronald
and Marc Fisher, whom were returning from a two-day fishing trip at the
Chuit River Lodge,
as well as Seth Siver, an auto mechanic
and employee of the lodge. After departing the Beluga
airport,
the aircraft's engine cut out 30 minutes into the flight.
Mason activated the auxiliary fuel pump, and
for a moment it looked as though the problem had been solved. But then the
engine continued to lose power and fail.
The
propeller windmilling, the high-winged vessel slowly glided downwards, from its
altitude of 800 feet, while over Anchorage. His field of vision filled
with buildings, Mason directed the plane towards the closest open field - the
stadium complex.
The
plane came in from the west very low and struck the left field fence
in front of the brick dressing rooms
at the north end of the track at the ajoining football & soccer stadium where a
coed soccer match was also in progress. The impact with the fence sheared
the engine off from the rest of the plane. The fuselage continued moving
by flipping once, and then came to rest on its belly on grass just off the north
end of the track. The
plane's tail was crumpled and the tip of its left wing snapped in two. No one on
the ground was injured, however Marc Fisher suffered
a dislocated ankle, several broken ribs, a
shiner and multiple bruises and cuts,
and his brother Ronald endured a broken right arm.
And the entire event was
captured on film.
Caught on Tape...
Cameraman and
producer Todd Dennis was taping the game for PannerVision, the Goldpanner's
official game chronicler.
Gero von Dehn, "The Voice of
PannerVision," made the call of the pilot making a "Crazy Landing" as the
plane struck the ground. The video of the crash would became a valuable
tool to investigators on the post-impact sequence of the crash, as well as
appear on ESPN, CNN, and various news and sports programs across the globe.
After a
47-minute delay, the baseball game continued. The soccer game did not.
Culpepper
hit the first pitch over the wall in the same spot as the plane crashed, for a
double, sealing the 10-2 victory for the Goldpanners. Culpepper would go
on to become the Goldpanner's Most Valuable Player for the 2003 season.
The National Transportation Safety Board's
investigation found about 30 gallons of fuel were in the left
wing-mounted fuel tank after the crash, while only 0.8 gallons remained in the
right fuel tank. When asked by investigators if the pilot attempted to
switch the fuel selector valve from the right fuel tank to the left tank, Mason
responded "No."
The pilot stated shortly after the crash that he routinely flew
the route between Beluga Airport and Merrill Field in Anchorage using only the
right fuel tank. Mason said that fuel stored in the left fuel tank was
considered a reserve tank. However, that morning, another pilot had flown the
Skywagon prior to Mason's flight, and usually, when an airplane returned to
Spernak, line service personnel would typically fill the right fuel tank,
readying the craft for the next flight. Thus, prior to departing on the outbound
leg of the flight from Anchorage to Beluga, Mason did not visually check the
fuel quantity in the right wing fuel tank.
The NTSB concluded that the likely cause of the crash was "(t)he pilot's incorrect positioning of the fuel tank selector valve
to a nearly empty tank, which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel
starvation, and subsequent emergency landing at an off-airport site. Factors
associated with the accident were the pilot's inadequate preflight inspection,
and his inadequate remedial action."
The Crash Site Today
Mulcahy Stadium remains today the largest outdoor baseball stadium in all of
Alaska. Recent efforts to replace the structure, originally built in 1953,
have gained little traction. The 5,300 seat stadium stands as a constant
reminder of a lucky set of circumstances combining to advert a potential
disaster.
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