ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 1, 1996 TAG: 9610010082
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS
SOURCE: AMY GARDNER NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS
IT WAS A LANDING, said those who saw it, that many veteran pilots could not have accomplished.
Wendy Kraus had less than 90 seconds to guide her rented Cessna to safety after its engine quit Saturday afternoon 2,500 feet above the New Jersey shore.
She also had three of her four siblings on board, so the 23-year-old Newport News woman had plenty of reason to get the plane on the ground in one piece.
She didn't quite make it - the Cessna 172 was destroyed - but Kraus and her passengers emerged unscathed after she set the plane down in the middle of a golf course in what was by all accounts an extraordinary landing.
``She did one hell of a job putting it in that little spot,'' said John Bombaro, owner of Rick Aviation at Newport News-Williamsburg International Airport, which rented Kraus the plane Friday, just three days after she earned her pilot's license. ``She did a job that high-timers would have screwed up - they would have put it in the trees. She saved everybody, and I don't care about the airplane. It can happen.''
Kraus and her siblings - Peter, 21, Timothy, 17 and Heidi, 11 - were on their way home from a cousin's wedding in Pennsylvania when the trouble, which Kraus thinks was an empty gas tank, began over Deal, N.J.
``We were pretty low, and we had just passed the Statue of Liberty - that is a beautiful flight if you ever get a chance,'' Kraus said, reflecting the calm that served her so well over northern New Jersey.
``Thirty seconds after we were through the New York airspace, the propeller stopped. I was eating a cookie, and I threw it down, and said, `OK, guys, be quiet, buckle up, and we'll be OK.'''
Kraus didn't have many choices. A traffic controller told her to land on the beach, but the people and piers looked dangerous, she said. She also wanted to avoid the water, in which it is easy to flip. And landing on a highway didn't seem like a good idea.
Her best option appeared to be a patch of green that turned out to be the driving range at the Deal Golf and Country Club.
``The first time I saw Wendy, she was floating over the trees coming at me,'' said Douglas Gatta, an attorney from Long Branch, N.J., the only player on the driving range when the Cessna came in. ``My first thought was, `Gee, that plane's too low.' Then, as she came over the trees, the plane started to drop. I thought, `Whoops, she's going to land this plane.'''
It wasn't easy, Kraus recalled. There were trees at both ends of the range, and just 250 feet of grass in between. And the Cessna was still high and going fast as it approached.
``It looked like were going to overshoot, and go right into the far trees,'' Kraus said. ``That was the one point when I thought, `Oh my gosh.' It was definitely scary.''
What Kraus did next probably saved her life, and the lives of her three siblings, officials say. She guided the plane through a ``Lazy S,'' which allowed it to continue its descent without moving too far ahead of the clearing; then, she did a ``slip'' - tilted the plane to one side using the wings and the rudder, creating drag and allowing it to descend steeply without picking up air speed.
Finally, Kraus pulled back hard on the controls - ``You have to just give it everything you've got'' - to keep the plane from crashing nose-first.
``My main concern was, `God, keep the nose up,' and she did, she did a great job,'' Gatta said. ``She had been wise enough to bring it into the wind. I know that because I was hitting into the wind - I was only able to hit a three-iron.''
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash, but Kraus is pretty sure they'll find an empty gas tank. She says she doesn't know why the plane ran out of gas after slightly more than three hours, because it made it nearly four hours without refueling on the trip up. Kraus was planning to stop for more gas in Lakewood, about 14 miles beyond the crash site, she said.
``Based on performance charts, I overestimated,'' she said.
The worst injury among the four siblings was a bruise on Heidi's forehead, Kraus said. The Cessna wasn't so lucky. The four-seater's rear landing gear was sheared off, the back part of the fuselage was bent, and so was the propeller, she said. ``She clipped a tree coming in, and the front wheel came off, but that's actually what slowed her down,'' said Deal Police Sgt. Stephen Carasia, who arrived about a minute after the crash.
The cabin itself was fine - and that's why the Krauses are, too.
``The FAA inspector said if they were 50 feet shorter or 50 feet longer, they would have all died,'' said Kraus' father, Bob, who is director of general services in York County, and who, with his wife, Polly, and other child, Daniel, 13, were planning to drive home from the same wedding that the four kids had left by air.
``Many pilots wouldn't have made that landing,'' Bob Kraus said. ``I have the utmost trust in Wendy and her judgment. You just have to thank the Lord.''
Meanwhile, Wendy Kraus won't stop flying - but she will be more careful about checking the fuel tank.
``I'll be up again,'' she said. ``It's given me a lot of respect for the air.''
LENGTH: Medium: 96 linesby CNB