THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 21, 1996 TAG: 9609210319
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: KALAMAZOO, MICH. LENGTH: 31 lines
A lawyer who represented victims' families in a 1994 USAir jet crash survived his own accident when the vintage warplane he was landing broke through a fence, flipped over and burst into flames.
Arthur Wolk, 52, of Philadelphia was hospitalized in fair condition Friday with arm and leg injuries. He was the only person aboard the Korean War-era Grumman Panther when it crashed Thursday at Kalamazoo-Battle Creek International Airport.
Wolk had taken off from the airport bound for an air show in Virginia Beach. Police said he called the tower shortly after takeoff and said he wanted to make a ``cautionary'' landing.
Witnesses said the plane went off the end of the runway through a fence, then hit an earthen berm and flipped over. It skidded across a road and caught on fire, spilling 800 gallons of fuel.
The plane was one of only several Grumman Panthers still in flying condition, said Bob Ellis, director of the Kalamazoo Aviation History Museum.
``It was really the first of the carrier-based Navy fighters,'' he said.
Wolk represented the families of some of the victims of USAir Flight 427, which crashed on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport on Sept. 8, 1994, killing all 132 people aboard.
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT PLANE INJURIES by CNB