Feature photo by Noah McLane
Story by Noah McLane
An MTSU airplane carrying a student and a flight instructor was involved in a crash yesterday morning during a training exercise at the Murfreesboro Municipal Airport, which resulted in delays as the plane and debris had to be removed from the airstrip.
MTSU’s Director of Aerospace Safety, Meredith Boardman, said the plane experienced a “runway excursion while performing a simulated engine failure on takeoff.”
Neither the student nor the instructor were injured in the incident. But the aircraft involved, a Piper Seminole, will be out of action for the foreseeable future.
The Aerospace Department Chair, Dr. Chaminda Prelis, said that details on what caused the crash will not be available to the public until the Federal Aviation Commission and the National Transportation Safety Board finish their investigations.
However, these groups don’t investigate just any crash.
There are certain criteria that, if met, require an aircraft accident or incident report to be sent to the nearest NTSB field office.
According to the FAA’s Aeronautical Information Manual’s section on safety, accident and hazard reports, 7-7-2a sec. 1a-f and 2, the criteria include: a system malfunction or failure, inability of any required flight crew member to perform their normal flight duties as a result of injury or illness, if a plane’s engine(s) becomes structurally compromised, an inflight fire and damage to property, other than the aircraft, estimated to exceed $25,000 for repair.
A report must also be filed if an aircraft is overdue and is believed to have been involved in an accident.
Boardman wants students to know that while incidents like this are rare, they do happen, and the MTSU Aerospace Department has an internal emergency response plan in place for when these events do occur.
Boardman also described a quick and efficient response to the “excursion.”
“We were able to coordinate with aircraft [already] in the air to get them safely on the ground at other airports while we managed the situation on the ground, but fortunately we had a lot of help from our maintenance team from Murfreesboro Airport management, from local authorities to get the scene secure and taken care of as quickly as possible so that we [could] resume operations,” Boardman said.
Noah McLane is the Lead News Reporter for MTSU Sidelines.
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