The wreckage of a light plane that crashed Thursday morning onto a wheat field of the Roland Danielson farm northwest of St. Peter was to have been removed today. The pilot, Jerald Erickson of rural New Ulm, was treated and released from Minnesota Valley Hospital in LeSueur. He had been using the Tri-Ag Services plane to spray the crops. (Photo by John Lampinen)

ST. PETER — Roland Danielson was having breakfast Thursday morning, watching a plane spray his wheat field.

As the plane began to fly south, away from Danielson’s rural St. Peter Farm, there was a sudden silence, Danielson remembers.

The plane headed back toward his wheat field, losing altitude from a height the farmer judged to be between 100 and 150 feet.

THE PLANE cleared a ditch bordering the farm, came in and crashed to the ground. The right wing was dipped slightly and slammed into the ground moments before the rest of the plane, Danielson recalls.

One of the landing wheels broke off, flew underneath the plane, circled over the top of it and sailed far into the wheat field.

Danielson, 37, raced out of his house,running toward the plane about 150 yards away.

“I said,’ Lord, let him live because I didn’t want to haul a corpse out of there,” Danielson remembers. “When I got there, I thought, ‘It’s a miracle he’s alive,” because he hit hard.”

LOOKING BACK on the incident, Danielson says he could have gotten into his car and gotten to the crumbled plane faster.

But running out of the house, it hadn’t seemed that far away. The run, he says, showed him that he needs to quit smoking.

As he approached the plane, Danielson states,he saw a small fire toward the front end of it.

“Get that guy out of there; that’s all I could think of,” he explains.

By the time he had gotten to the crash site, the pilot, Jerald Erickson,27,of rural New Ulm, had taken his helmet off and opened the door.

AS DANIELSON remembers the experience:

“I told him to get out of here, in case of fire.

“He said, ‘No I’m okay.'”

“And I said, ‘No, you get out of here. That’s an order.””

The crash had shaken Erickson, and the pilot recalls that he was having trouble breathing when Danielson reached the plane. The first time Danielson told him to exit the aircraft, Erickson explains, he was trying to catch his breath.

It was on Danielson’s second statement that Erickson realized the possible fire danger.

AFTER ERICKSON got out of his seat, which had been crushed on impact, Danielson returned to his house to get his car.

When he got back with it, Danielson remembers, Erickson was out of the plane, lying in the wheat.

Danielson helped him into the car and took him to the Minnesota Valley Hospital in Le Sueur.

THE ACCIDENT occurred at about 8 a.m. Erickson had sprayed the field with 2-4,D earlier and had returned Thursday morning for a small portion of the wheat that he had missed, according to Danielson.

The engine had apparently sputtered a few times before the crash, but didn’t fail until Erickson had begun to leave the Danielson farm.

Danielson, who says he hadn’t met Erickson before, indicates that the pilot was coherent as he was taken to the hospital.

PART OF the wheat field was damaged, but Danielson isn’t overly concerned about it.

The plane, belonging to Tri-Ag Services of Rush River, was destroyed, according to the Nicollet County Sheriff’s office.

“It could have been worse,” Danielson observes. “An airplane you can always replace.”

New Ulm Daily Journal

June 4, 1976