Two Onboard OK After Freeway Landing

From the sound of it, 63-year-old flight instructor John Vashko was able to provide his 18-year-old student, Kenneth Mattuck Jr., with a valuable lesson this weekend... one the younger man expects to carry with him to the hallowed halls of Annapolis.

The two had just taken off from Schaumberg Regional Airport Sunday on a lesson, with Mattuck at the controls, when the engine of their Piper Warrior (file photos of type, above and below) showed signs of fatigue. It was struggling to make power, and it was soon clear the plane wasn't going to stay in the air for very much longer.

What happened next, Mattuck told the Chicago Tribune, turned out to be the best lesson so far in the high-school senior's brief piloting career. Realizing they weren't going to be able to turn back to the airport, Vashko took the controls and steered the plane towards the Elgin-O'Hare Expressway.

It wasn't the best landing -- part of the wing was shorn off, and they wound up upside-down -- but hey, any landing you can walk away from, right? And both men did, with Vashko suffering only a slight head wound in the ordeal.

They were also able to avoid hitting any vehicles on the freeway -- and Mattuck, who is close to taking his checkride, told the Tribune he plans on returning to the air soon.

"Once flying is in your blood, it never goes away," he said. "The way I view it is that I can fall back on this if I ever have a problem or lose an engine. Now I haven't just heard about this in the classroom, but have actually seen it happen."

The young man added he was scared... but also confident Vashko, who has been his instructor at Northwest Aviation since November, would be able to handle the crisis.

"John has a lot, a lot, a lot of experience," Mattuck said. "It looked pretty bad, but it really couldn't have come out much better." Vashko was unavailable for comment Sunday.

Mattuck told the Tribune that after he gets his ticket and graduates high school, he hopes to attend the Naval Academy in Annapolis -- to become a pilot.

FMI: www.faa.gov