Stunt Pilot Injured
PLANE CRASHED NEAR MODEL AIRPLANE AIRSTRIP IN SILOAM SPRINGS
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
SILOAM SPRINGS — A pilot of a stunt plane was injured when it crashed into a field next to a model airplane airstrip in south Siloam Springs on Tuesday.
Matt Younkin of Springdale crashed the single-engine homemade aerobatic airplane along Waukesha Road, said Michael Scroggin, manager of Siloam Springs Municipal Airport.
The airplane clipped an old transmission line of Southwestern Electric Power Co. before crashing just north of Allen Field, home of the Siloam Springs Modelers.
Younkin left Siloam Springs Municipal Airport about 2 p.m. Tuesday, Scroggin said.
No one else was on board the airplane, Fire Chief Jimmy Harris said.
The pilot was “up and walking around when we arrived on scene” but had some minor injuries, Harris said.
Siloam Springs Fire Department was called to the scene at 2:44 p.m.
Paramedics treated the pilot and transported him to Northwest Medical Center-Springdale. They left the scene at 3:18 p.m.
Witnesses said they heard what sounded like an airplane running out of fuel.
Enrique Trujillo of Chanel Street said he heard the engine go “off and on and off and on.”
It circled the area and fell into the field.
Jamie Totty of a nearby mobile home park said she heard the sound of “metal crinkling up” when the airplane hit the ground.
“It was too close to home,” she said.
The airplane did not catch fire and was partially intact in a field of brambles.
Younkin is the son of stunt pilot Bobby Younkin, who died during an air show in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada, in 2005.
Matt Younkin said in 2006 he would continue his father’s legacy by taking up stunt flying.
Bobby Younkin learned to fly when he was 16 and participated in his first air show when he was 18, according to a July 2005 article in the Siloam Springs Herald-Leader.
Before the crash at the air show in Canada, he had logged more than 15,000 hours flying.
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