Mitchell and his uncle pilot Steve Woodhead in the Texan Club ultralight plane just prior to their emergency landing. Photo / Supplied
Mitchell and his uncle pilot Steve Woodhead in the Texan Club ultralight plane just prior to their emergency landing. Photo / Supplied
A pilot and teenage passenger had a lucky escape after their ultralight aircraft suffered engine trouble forcing them to make an emergency landing on a Northland beach.
Thankfully the duo landed safely on the sandy runway south of Baylys Beach on Northland's west coast.
"I'm quite happy to say, it was a successful landing with no injuries and no damage…it was good character building stuff," pilot Steve Woodhead said.
The experience is one that his nephew Mitchell is unlikely to forget.
"He was a little bit shaky, but he was good, he remained calm, which was good."
Fifteen-year-old Mitchell said the experience was a "bit freaky", but he knew he was in safe hands.
Woodhead, a farmer and pilot from Tangiteroria, was looking after his Mitchell for the school holidays when the incident happened last Wednesday afternoon.
"My nephew was visiting me and I had a cunning plan to fly him home to Auckland to avoid the traffic."
Mitchell had never been in a plane before so it was something new and exciting for him.
Before taking the big trip south to Auckland the pair decided it would be a good idea to fly towards the west coast and take in the scenery.
"The weather conditions were perfect, it was a beautiful afternoon for flying," Woodhead recalled.
Is it a bird is it a plane? No it's a helicopter carrying a plane in the air back to its base after it was forced to land south of Baylys Beach, after suffering engine trouble.
However, as the pair were flying over Baylys Beach the plane's engine management system lit up the instrument panel.
"As we were arriving over the beach, the engine light came on, the light for high oil temperature came on and this is a warning sign that something is not right."
Woodhead said that no sooner had the engine light come on and the plane's engine started making a noise.
"The engine sounded a bit rough, it was not happy, so I guessed there must be a mechanical issue there."
It was then that Woodhead quickly realised the was flying above what he describes as a perfect landing strip, "the beach midway between a high and low tides".
"We might have scared a few locals as we were coming in, but we ended up have a nice safe landing."
"I'm a glider pilot as well, so I think that knowledge of flying a glider was helpful in this situation. When you have an aircraft with no engine, you are just gliding."
Not long after landing Woodhead arranged for the plane to be picked up by local Helicopter Company HeliNorth and taken back to the Dargaville Aero Club for inspection and repairs.
A Squirrel Helicopter was used to hoist the plane from the beach on Thursday and fly it across Baylys Beach and Dargaville, enthralling many who posted images of the unusual sight to social media.
HeliNorth Manager Reuben Wright said they were more than happy and prepared to lift and relocate the aeroplane up and out of the beach.
"There was a bit of liaising with the owners of the aircraft as every plane is slightly different structurally, so we just have to make sure we sort it out, so as not to sabotage the structural integrity of the plane and then it was a process of taking the pilot to the sight and lifting strops to ensure it was secure, for when the helicopter arrived."
Wright said it was not a common sight - a helicopter transporting a plane.
"It's not often an aircraft comes to grief and has to land somewhere. Generally they make it back to base. So we probably end up doing something like this, only once every few years."
"I really just want to commend the pilot of the plane, it was good management in getting the plane down safely and soundly. To my knowledge it didn't sound like the engine was flying too well.
"It was very lucky the pilot was able to land safe and soundly on the beach."
