BOULDER, Colo.—The glider pilot who flew to safety through a fireball from the midair collision of two planes over Boulder says it was just seconds between when he saw one plane approaching and when it collided with the plane towing him.
On NBC’s “Today” show Tuesday, Reuben Bakker and his two passengers discussed the crash that killed three people Saturday near Boulder Municipal Airport.
The Cirrus SR-20 aircraft that collided with the Piper Pawnee towing Bakker’s glider were flying at a 90-degree angle to each other when they crashed, investigators said. Bakker managed to disconnect the glider just before impact.
The crash killed the tow plane pilot Alexander Howard Gilmer, 25, of Evergreen; Boulder lawyer and Cirrus pilot Bob Matthews, 58; and his 56-year-old brother, Mark Matthews.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators were piecing together the planes Tuesday and will do a 3-D reconstruction in Greeley, where they took the wreckage.
Bakker told the “Today” show he was flying Brandi Hepburn and her son when he saw a plane to his right. It looked like it was heading for them. As his hand was on the tow release, the two planes collided.
“The time it took for my hand to go here to there, it had already hit the wings folded up on the tow plane, and it was instant. It was a huge fireball,” he said.
“I didn’t see the wreckage anymore because it was gone, because everything was red,” Bakker said.
Hepburn said: “I was horrified. I felt the heat on my forehead as we flew through the flames.”
Tracey Spence, who manages the Boulder-based flight school Journeys Aviation, heard Bakker’s ‘mayday’ call reporting the collision on a shared radio frequency immediately after the crash.
“He announced ‘mayday, mayday, mayday,’ and said there was a collision and gave the location and said one of the airplane’s parachutes had deployed,” Spence told the Boulder Camera newspaper. He said Bakker remained calm throughout the call.
Spence told the Camera he heard no communication from either aircraft over the shared radio frequency while flying in the area Saturday.
Visibility at the time of the crash was about nine miles, Spence said. On a clear day, pilots can see up to 70 miles away.
