Brad and John - Mornings on KISM
pilot survives crash
that guy is going to be there. Very thankful this Christmas is on the phone with this guy. He is lucky to be alive this morning. I mean, let's start with that. We're going to flood you with information about our next guest who has been on this program before was on all with us a little earlier this morning, but it just in starting with the story that is in the Seattle Times this morning about what happened earlier this week. Robert D. Laurentiis joins us this morning that he is the Robert D. Laurentiis of the Robert D. Laurentiis International Airport in Oak Harbor. And he is the Robert D. Laurentiis who did the North Pole South Pole flight. He's the Robert D. Laurentiis who has a, there's a documentary on his exploits that is streaming on Amazon this week just started and Apple TV plus as well. Good morning, Robert. Happy to be happy to be alive. Absolutely every day, every day. Yeah. So this was what day did this happen this week? Three days ago. Okay, you are in your plane that has, that is part of many of these exploits that we're going to talk about. And you're trying to land where and what happens? Well, I was going into Feltfield in Spokane, which I've done many, many times. And you know, this plane has been through L before, I mean, minus 60 Celsius over the South Pole, cyclones and Madagascar, you know, low fuel, sand storms and decar Senegol. It's tough, you know, it's an all weather fully capable plane. And I was descending into the Spokane area, very solid layer of fog on the east side of the cascade. Usually it's on the west side and they call the cascades, of course, the ice makers. And I was on an instrument approach, meaning, you know, there's certain waypoints that you follow and altitude. The plane was flying it perfectly on its three dimensional autopilot. And I had all the deicing equipment lit off. And it was, you know, perfect approach. The ceilings were about 300 feet and then solid at 600. And as I lined up on final, you know, the plane's descending, I break out of the cloud and I can see the ground, but I can't quite see the runway ahead of me because the visual range is about three miles. And eventually I see it. You know, I have this sense, okay, I've got it made, just need to make one small course correction. And I bank the plane to the left. And when you bank a plane, you start to lose a bit of altitude. So you compensate with more throttle. And I went through the throttles. And, you know, these are monster predator bee-drown engines with just 300 hours on them. So they're strong engines, you know, they've proven themselves. And when I push the throttles forward, I get this loud popping sound, you know, pop, pop, pop, pop. And then that's a vibration. And the problem is, you know, when you're about 200 feet above the ground, there's no way to respond. You know, you can't put the nose down and increase your airspeed because you would hit the ground. And it's at that point, I knew I had problems. And how much time do you think you have in your head real quick? Oh, at that point, yeah, seconds, seconds. And, you know, I push the throttles forward a little bit more and still nothing. And I can feel the plane dropping out of the air. And, you know, you don't want to go down those first, because the cockpit is located, you know, on the very front of the plane. Yeah, that's where you are. Yeah, so then I'm going down and I thought to myself, you know, I'm going to hit. And that's the scary moment, right? Because you know, you just have, at that point, maybe an instant. And I, my thought was I was probably going to blackout from the impact because it was going to be hard. And the plane hit the ground and, you know, I was still alive. And I was like, okay, well, I'm still in the game. And then there's a saying in aviation that you fly the plane to the scene of the wreckage, which means you continue to attempt to fly the plane as long as you're moving. So, you know, at that point, I, what does that mean? You're still trying to steer it? You're trying? What are you trying to do using flaps? Okay. Yeah. So in that case, you know, rudder is probably functional. And I, you know, sliding along the ground at about 100 knots, which is 115 miles an hour. And I tried to put the engines into thrust reverse, you know, to slow it down. That was not responsive. And I'm literally trying to steer the plane so I don't have anything. Are you on a wheat field? There's the trees. What are you, what are you encountering? It's just a field. It's a runway safety area. So that if a plane lands short, it's, you know, going to have some space where it doesn't hit anything, you know, it's a safety area around the runway. And, you know, the plane is sliding forward very fast. And eventually I come to a stop, which seemed to take a long time. Didn't hit anything to hit anyone. You know, I've dispensed that the plane is sort of disintegrating a bit around me. And I can hear the engines still droning away. And my immediate thought is, okay, I need to shut the engines down, which I did. I shut the fuel off. I shut the electronics off. I shut off the hydraulics. And then there was silence. And I, you know, look out the windows and the props, the broken props, you know, there's just little stuff left are still spinning. And, you know, it's procedure. You wait for the props to stop and then you get out of the plane. And you get away from it, right? Because there's the potential for fire, you know, smoke, electrical, all that stuff. So I'm unbolted and I rotated the latch on the hatch and stepped out and was just, you know, thankful, thankful to be alive. All right, this is Robert De Laurentis. We're talking about talking to from would be island in the would be island the dealer rent this international airport. That's Robert's airport. And he has a, by the way, he has a somewhat say, Jesus, this, this couldn't be some kind of stunt for your documentary you've got coming out this week. But it is streaming this week on, on, on Amazon and Apple TV plus and we'll talk about that in just a second. But you are okay, as we can tell, no broken bones or anything like that. The plane is that pretty much totaled? I believe it's going to be totaled. We'll see, you know, it's have some insurance, certainly not enough to pay for the plane. So there's, you know, that's a sad point. But, you know, we'll see if we can bring her back to life, we will, if not, maybe we'll try and buy the fuselage for the airport museum, that would be a nice, you know, conclusion. But you know, that plane always got me to the ground safely. And the other day was no exception. And I'm very thankful for that. And, you know, certainly that plane has accomplished so many world records and helped move the scientific community ahead with its plastic and particle experiments and NASA experiment biofuels and something called ADSD tracking. All right. Well, in our last minute or so that we have here, Robert, tell us about a real quick, the South Pole and North Pole and the documentary. What people will see in the documentary? Well, they're going to see a plane, you know, going through its absolute and total limit of how plane designed to fly for hours flying 18.1, encountering, you know, minus 60 Celsius over the poles, bursting fuel tanks on the ground, loss of navigation for up to five hours over the North Pole, you know, just extreme adversity and then persistence. And you know, in the documentary, it's about connecting people and meeting a lot of different people along the way and seeing that people are all connected. They want the same things, you know, they want safety. They want health for their family. They want peace. They want joy, happiness, financial security. And it doesn't matter, you know, what the color of their skin is, their religion, their ethnicity, their country of origin, people ultimately want the same thing. And it's going to be beautiful cinematography. You told me the Nat Geo people are behind it. Peace pilot is the name of this that you can look for in Amazon and Apple TV Plus. And end of the book as well, right? Yeah, the book is called Peace Pilot to the end of the earth and beyond. We released that a few months back. That's written by me and certainly, you know, the cinematographers have a big role in the documentary. But I think it's a great story, you know, about a plane and overcoming adversity. And of course, it happened part of it. Of the eight months and 23 days was during COVID as well. Well, I'm glad you're here to tell us that story. And I look forward to hearing more of the story with the documentary. Thank you, Robert. Thanks so much. Robert De Laurentis. Yeah, check out that the streaming right now. Peace pilot again is the name of it. Amazon and Apple
Whidbey Island resident and celebrated pilot Robert DeLaurentis told us about his plane crash last week in Spokane. He is also the subject of an upcoming documentary on his record setting flight from the North Pole to the South Pole!