Atkin Air, bad luck strikes again.

I saw the newsflash on the Daily Democrat website that a small plane crashed shortly after takeoff from the Woodland Airport.

(Photo from Deo Ferrer/Daily Democrat)

Both folks walked away from the wreck after a hawk smashed through the window of the Cessna. Upside down in a tomato field is no way to end a flight, but as far as airplane crashes go, if I have to be in one, I'll take this kind over the smoking hole in the ground flavor of crash.

It turns out the Cessna is owned by Atkin Air, a small charter and instruction school out of Lincoln, Ca. I have flown with Ken Atkin and his crews a dozen times in the past, mostly in their Piper Seneca II, like this one.
I have also flown in the Cessna 414, which is a cool plane.

A few years ago I saw a photo on the wall at Atkin showing a WWII Russian Yak 55M crashed on top of a Cessna 172. The Yak came in to land at the Lincoln airport and a Cessna 172 was landing on the same runway. The Yak didn't see the Cessna as it approached the runway and from what I hear you can't see much from the seat of the Yak, anyway it landed on top of the Cessna as it started it touchdown. As it turns out, the 172 was owned by a friend of ours and she had leased it to Atkin for a lesson plane. Its a good thing the Yak had a wooden propeller, otherwise the fuel tank on the Cessna may have been set ablaze.

You know, as much as I love flying, and I know you have to die of something, I think I will stick horses and Jeeps, they seem just a tab bit safer.