Previously, N6619U was down in the mud pond. I grabbed my headset and started transmitting, “This is Mooney 6619U, we are down. Mooney 6619U we need medical assistance.” And in desperation said, “Dave, can you hear me?” The antenna was buried three feet in the mud. [See A Mooney Girl Is Born, Part 3]
We heard a voice call through the trees “are you okay, do you need help?” and I answered that my father was injured and we needed an ambulance. We were transported to the local hospital, and had CAT scans, x-rays and the like. The local sheriff, who is also a pilot and was in the air at the time, came to see us. He said from the looks of the instruments, we did everything right.
We were treated and released from the hospital with only slight whiplash and lacerations. That night, my father and husband grilled salmon and steak left from the Fly-In dinner. I was very shaken up and felt guilty, to which he replied, “There were no funerals being planned.” My father also said that this would only be a failure if I never flew again.
The next day, Dave took my father, along with the FAA Investigator to the scene of the accident and me. It was startling. Maggie had major damage to her wings, nose and tail. The trees were in shreds. Four came to rest on top of us. The cabin was unharmed. Dave crawled through the mud to help us retrieve our personal effects. My Garmin III loose in the cabin, powered up. My daughter’s laptop powered up. My father’s Walkman was playing. Not a branch, not a crack in the windshield. Only one instrument’s casing was cracked.
During the next week, there was a front page story in the Hood River news,
complete with picture. I received calls from many Hood River and The Dalles
pilots with support and good wishes. I did hear many of the rumors going
around. I heard that:
1) we flew heavy; 2) we flew with the carb heat on; 3)
we flew with the parking brake on; 4) we flew with the prop out. While none of
these are the case, the rumors took a toll on me. As a new pilot, I wanted to
know what I did, or didn’t do that caused this mishap. A few pilots even went
to the crash site, or later the salvage shop, to look inside the plane to test
their theories.
I received a call from the FAA investigator; he said that he had gone to The Dalles, where Maggie was taken. He and the FAA mechanic checked the cylinders. Our #1 cylinder was bad. It had gone through annual only a few months before and had 68 pounds of pressure. The best they could get was 35 and the constant reading was 25 pounds. The #2, #3, and #4 cylinders were within normal limits. With the #1 cylinder out, the FAA calculated we would have only had 75% total power at best. He also said that he had checked my planning twice and three times to find an error. He added five pounds of clothes for each person and fifty pounds of baggage, but found we would have still been within limits. After the accident, he borrowed my knee board with all the planning. He returned it to me a few days later. He said he was impressed by the planning, how conscious we were of the weight and balance, AOPA flight planning, useful load, and weather. He indicated that he was going to send it, along with the newspaper article, into the NTSB. He had not really known of the safety features that Mooney Airplane incorporates, but was very impressed, especially in light of the impact the wings and fuselage took, while no harm came to us in the cabin.
Further, the investigator complimented my Dad and me on what safe pilots we are. In light of the second-guessing and the “what-ifs” I had been doing, this was welcome news. The cause of the accident appears to be the failure of the #1 cylinder. It was also noted that when the #1 cylinder went down it robbed power from the remaining three cylinders.
I went flying one week after the accident. It was good to be in the air. My
instructor, Dave, and I flew a Warrior up to Yakima for a very uneventful
flight. 
As I landed in Yakima, I realized that the skill and good luck that helped me in
Hood River, would follow me in my years of flying. 
My father told me about the safety features of the Mooney that helped him decide to buy it for
family use. He said they have a steel cage and roll bar in the cockpit. The POH
talked about a special Z-spar design in the wings. Through the combination of
providence, skill and the safety features of our Mooney, we all walked out of
that mud pond.
Maggie took one for the team. She protected us, as she had done for 27 years,
right to the ground. And while she is gone, there was another Mooney in our
future. It is the only plane I will own. Mooney is the only name I will trust.
On November 17th, Maggie II, a 1965 Mooney M20E was delivered to me and is based
in The Dalles [KDLS]. 
My
father reserved the number N6619U for me. I changed the number on the M20E. We
salvaged the avionics and other instruments from Maggie I and they will be
installed in my plane.
I chuckle sometimes because if I am not flying, I am thinking about flying, talking about flying or reading about flying. I suppose once the bug has got you, it is a lifetime obsession. I also firmly believe that the combination of my instruction, reading, and choice of aircraft led to the very happy ending of this story.
