Airplane makes emergency landing in field after engine quits at 16,000 feet

A small airplane with two people aboard made an emergency landing in a field just south of the Weiser airport on Friday night.
 The call came into 911 dispatch at about 9:15 p.m. that an airplane had overshot the runway, clipped a powerline and came to rest on its wheels in a field south of Hansen Road.
 There were no injuries to the pilot or the passenger in the accident. When law enforcement arrived the two occupants were standing outside of the airplane. The pilot notified the FAA of the mishap.
 Traffic was not allowed on Hansen Road until Idaho Power Company employees could repair a downed power line on the road. Residents on Hansen Road were advised to stay in their homes.
 The single-engine Cessna Centurion suffered no significant damage landing in the field, except for some scratches where the airplane had snagged the power line.  
 On Saturday, the airplane was towed from the field to the airport parking area to await repairs.
 The pilot, who said his name was J.R., said they were on the final leg of a trip from Houston to Richland, Wash. when the airplane’s oil pressure gauge indicated a problem. The plane was flying at 16,000 feet. The Cessna Centurion model is pressurized to allow flying over 12,000 feet.
 The pilot declared an emergency when the engine quit and notified air traffic controllers that they were diverting and looking for a place to land.
 According to the onboard GPS, the Weiser airport was the closest to their location at about 20 miles away. Without an engine, the airplane became a “4,000-pound glider,” J.R. said.  
 The pilot said he tried to get the Weiser airport’s runway lights to turn on by clicking the radio handset, which is how most runway lights are activated at rural airports at night.
 He was unsuccessful in turning on the runway lights and at that point began looking for a place to put the airplane down without hurting anybody.
 J.R. said they could see the lit beacon at the airport but could not see the unlit runway or how far it was from airport buildings. They were not familiar with the Weiser airport and it was a dark night with no moon.
 At that point, he looked for someplace to land without hitting any of the nearby homes.
 The plane cleared the airport’s perimeter fence and ended up about 500 feet from Hansen Road in a hay field after first crossing a corn field.
 “I was expecting the gear to be sheared off. It was like landing on a really rough surface,” he said on Saturday.
 Larry Boots, a member of the Weiser airport advisory board, used an ATV to tow the plane from the field to the airport on Saturday. The Weiser airport manager was out of town at the time of the incident.
 Boots gave the pilot credit for putting the airplane down without serious incident during a highly stressful situation.
 “They did a wonderful job. They had everything against them. They were under pressure and they did everything correctly,” Boots said.
 J.R. said he had just sold the plane to the unidentified passenger, who is also a pilot, and they were ferrying the airplane to Richland, Wash. They had flown about 1,200 miles and had another 400 or so to go.
 He said he did not know what caused the engine problems. The rods in the engine ended up puncturing the engine, creating a hole in it.
 The airplane will stay at the Weiser airport until repairs can be made.