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Former local airport manager hurt in crop-dusting accident
HUNTINGBURG -- A former pilot for Dixie Chopper was severely injured last Friday when the crop dusting plane he was flying crashed in Dubois County.
John A. Layne, 53, of Danville, was reportedly severely injured in the crash currently being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration.
St. Mary's Medical Center has reported Layne was in fair condition but still hospitalized. He is known to have incurred leg and hip injuries in the crash.
Layne, the former manager of the Putnam County Airport, served as both a pilot and general manager of Dixie Chopper Air as late as 2012. He left the local airport late that year to assume the crop-dusting position.
According to a pilot who was at the Huntingburg Airport when the crash occurred, he and another pilot observed Layne's crop duster while it was flying. The plane went up and turned "really weird, it looked like it was going into a spin," the pilot said.
At about 10:36 a.m. Friday, the Dubois County 9-1-1 Emergency Dispatch was notified that a plane had crashed on the southeast side of the Huntingburg Conservation Club lake after hitting Vectren power lines running along County Road 100W.
Layne's Air Tractor AT-802A hit the power lines before it crashed on the shoreline of a lake. It has not been determined if hitting the power lines caused the crash or if the plane hit them while it was crashing.
On the scene the mangled remains of the aircraft wrapped around a tree. A 35- to 40-foot debris path inundated with the smell of airplane fuel led down to the lake. Parts of the broken plane floated along the shoreline. A gash in the dirt about six feet above the waterline signaled where some part of the plane hit the ground first before continuing up the property.
The plane knocked down several saplings as it skidded up the bank before striking the large tree north of a nearby shelterhouse.
Emergency responders from Memorial Hospital and St. Henry stabilized Layne at the scene of the accident before transporting him to a waiting LifeFlight helicopter at the Huntingburg Airport.
Huntingburg Airport employees, Indiana State Police, Dubois County Sheriff's Department, Huntingburg Police Department, Huntingburg Energy Utility, Memorial Hospital Emergency Medical Services, and St. Henry Volunteer Fire Department responded to the scene.
Vectren and Dubois REC also responded to repair three high-tension power lines that were ripped down when the plane crashed.
Indiana State Police secured the scene until an investigator from the Federal Aviation Administration arrived later that afternoon.
The aircraft is owned by Milhon Air Inc. out of Martinsville. Such planes travel at speeds up to 160 mph when applying chemicals to fields.