Weird! Gust of Wind Blows Over Small Plane Near Royal City

After an investigation, Grant County Sheriff's Deputies concurred with the pilot's assessment of what happened here; it was Mother Nature's fault.

May 3, Monday, 83-year-old Dwain Forester was piloting this Cessna 175B aircraft, making a landing at a private airstrip near Road 11 Southeast. It was about 9 miles northwest of Royal City.

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Like many such landing-takeoff areas, the runway strip is hard packed dirt. Forester had just landed, and was making a 180 degree turn on the ground when a gust of wind caught the flaps and flipped the aircraft on it's top.

Grant County Deputies are getting used to strange occurrences, a few weeks ago a large chunk of debris from the Space-X spaceship plummeted into a field in southeastern Grant County as the unmanned craft re-entered the earth's atmosphere.

Now this!

Authorities agreed it was a freak occurrence, but these things do happen sometimes. Fortunately, Forester was not hurt, but his 1960 vintage Cessna will need some significant repairs.

No one else was hurt, and the plane did not catch fire.