WTHR |Plane misses homes, pilot dies, family survives

Plane misses homes, pilot dies, family survives

Indianapolis - A small plane narrowly missed homes as it crashed in a subdivision's retention pond Monday, killing the pilot, but residents rescued the three passengers as the aircraft filled with water. The pilot was identified as Dr. Robert Edesess. He was 66 years old.

Edesess, an oral surgeon in the Indianapolis area, was at the controls when it crash-landed in a retention pond at the Villages at Drakes Landing neighborhood Monday morning. Edesess, his wife Poolie and their son Jeremy were aboard, along with Janet Adams.

Edesess and a friend, Bruce Kehoe, a local attorney, bought the plane, a Cirrus aircraft, just a few days ago. The two men, who took aviation classes together, co-owned the plane. Kehoe told Eyewitness News he believes Edesess became medically incapacitated while piloting the plane Monday morning, and that Poolie Edesess activated the plane's emergency parachute.

The residents of the development which is located near Raceway Road and 21st St. pulled out all four people in the single-engine plane, but Dr. Edesess, died later at a local hospital. He and two family members aboard were survivors of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
      
The rescuers "jumped in and got them out of the plane and dragged them over to the side," said Gene Konzen, chief of the Wayne Township Fire Department. "If it wouldn't have been for them, I don't think any of them would have made it.",
     
Elizabeth Isham Corey of the Federal Aviation Administration said the Edesess' plane had just taken off Monday from the Eagle Creek Airport on the city's northwest side en route to Hilton Head Island, S.C., when it reportedly turned around and crashed into the pond, narrowing missing homes clustered around it.
     
Witnesses said they watched the aircraft coming in, with its parachute, a safety feature on some smaller planes, deployed behind it.
     
"He was sputtering, and the engine cut off, and the parachute came out, when we heard a big 'poof,"' said resident Julie Burck.
     
Bruce Kehoe, an Indianapolis attorney who owned the plane with Edesess, said hospital personnel told him his friend had become incapacitated by a stroke or similar medical problem while flying the plane.
     
"I guess the fortunate thing is that Bob had instructed his family on the ballistic parachute procedure," Kehoe said Monday night.
     
Kehoe said he and Edesess had selected the plane, a Cirrus SR22, in part because of its safety features. Edesess, an experienced pilot, had just picked up the plane on Saturday, Kehoe said.
     
After the crash, the plane was nearly submerged in water covered by aircraft fuel and the parachute.
     
The survivors were in area hospitals but their injuries were not considered life-threatening. Edesess' wife, Pouliri, was listed in fair condition, and his son, Jeremy, and Janet Adams were in serious but stable condition. Konzen identified Adams as Jeremy Edesess' girlfriend.
     
Three rescuers were taken to hospitals for observation because they were exposed to the leaked fuel, Konzen said.
     
The Edesesses had been in Thailand visiting Pouliri Edesess' family when the tsunami hit. The three family members and another son, Robert, told reporters afterward that were in a tour boat visiting Emerald Cave in the Andaman Sea when huge waves smashed it against the rocks off the southern coast of Thailand. About 80 tourists were trapped in the cave and two died.
     
The single-engine, four-seat aircraft was a 2006 model made by Cirrus Design Corp. of Duluth, Minn.
     
"We're all about safety, we design what we believe is hands down the safest airplane in its class in the world," said Bill King, the company's vice president of business administration.
     
Corey said federal investigators arrived at the crash site Monday.
     
      (Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)