Two men walk away from plane crash

Two men were lucky to have survived when their light plane crashed on Lake Union near South Haven, says Meeker County Sheriff Mike Hirman.
“They were very lucky to have walked away from it, extremely,” said Hirman.
Donald Salmela, 45, of Lake Union, a passenger in the plane piloted by his friend, Donald Lloyd Shipp of Forest Lake, agreed.
He said they suffered only a few bruises in the accident on Sunday, March 4, about 1:30 p.m.
The 1956 Cessna 170 went down near the south shore of the lake, a few miles southwest of South Haven, while taking off.
“A downdraft caught our wing,” Salmela said. “We just couldn’t get her up high enough.”
Salmela said the plane wasn’t getting enough altitute to clear some trees in its path, so the pilot banked left “and a downdraft caught our wing and down we went.”
The two men had their safety belts on, he said.
Shipp, in his mid-60s, is a veteran pilot of more than 25 years who’s never crashed before, Salmela said.
The location of the accident is just west of the Wright-Meeker county line.
The aircraft still rested on the snow-covered ice of the lake Monday, its wheels, skis and doors torn off; the propeller and wingtips bent; windshield broken and the midsection of the fuselage crumpled.
Barry Johnson of the Federal Aviation Administration in Minneapolis was at the scene Monday to begin investigating.
Results of the FAA’s probe likely won’t be available for two to four weeks, he said.
The plane crashed about 300 feet from the home of James Donabauer at the lake’s south end, but he and his wife weren’t home.
They reported it about 9:30 p.m. when his son, Bret of St. Cloud, spotted the wreckage from their window.