Late Night Crash Wasn't Just A Bad Dream

The last thing he remembered was seeing the lights of Detroit Lakes, MN in the distance. The next thing he knew, he was in a cornfield, injured, alone in the darkness and unable to move. Three long hours passed before help arrived.

When Joshua Oreck got up at about 0800 on July 7th of 2004, he knew it'd be a busy day at the University of North Dakota. He had a class at 1000, a test in Aviation Meteorology, and then a long cross-country flight.

He completed his flight planning, and went over the plan with his instructor. He was all set to go after preflighting his PA-28-161, but the plane wouldn't start. He was able to switch to N248ND and prepare it for flight.  After amending his flight plan, he departed from GFK at 1815, arriving at Airlake Airport (LVN) at 2030.  He continued on to Crystal City (MIC) at 2130 and refueled both the plane and himself.

As pilots often do, he met with a friend, and enjoyed a BBQ dinner before heading for home at 2355. After climbing to 4,500 feet msl, he opened his flight plan with flight service. He contacted flight service while near his first checkpoint, St Cloud, MN. He missed his second checkpoint, but continued on using the GPS and VOR to keep track of his position. He saw the lights of Detroit Lakes.

A farmer living near Waubun, MN heard and saw an airplane circling overhead. Then he heard the crash. He could not see the crash site because of rolling hills, ravines, knee high corn, and wheat, but he notified authorities. It took almost 3 � hours to find the injured pilot, who was then flown by helicopter to the hospital.

According to the NTSB Report, radar data indicated that N248ND was flying on a northwesterly heading until 0126. Radar data then showed the aircraft entered descending left turns, completing 6 1/2 turns before it was lost from radar at 0133 at less than 400 feet agl.

The debris path was oriented on a 178 degree heading and was about 342 feet long from the initial impact point to where the main wreckage was located. The left wing had separated from the fuselage and was about 190 feet from the initial impact point.

In the summer, the suns stays out until 2130, so UND students wishing to complete night lessons must wait until 2200. The NTSB report revealed that Oreck was working on lesson five in his commercial/instrument program, which required a three leg cross-country flight with one leg of at least 250 nautical miles. In addition, he needed to log 5 hours of night flying over the course of lessons four through eight.

The factual report seems to support the theory that Oreck fell asleep in the cockpit. "First, I should not have taken off thinking that I might get tired. I should have requested flight following to keep my attention. Possibly [I] should have recognized symptoms of fatigue and possibly state of consciousness, and landed before losing consciousness," said Oreck to the NTSB.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id=CHI04LA173&rpt=fa