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Gene Hamner crashed his crop dusting plane Thursday. He broke his nose in the crash when a visor hit him. (Courtesy photograph)
Final career flight
After 30 years of flying, Lodi pilot retiring early due to plane crash
As he has for nearly 35 years, Gene Hamner got into a small crop dusting plane early Thursday morning and took to the skies.
Before long, he was spreading sulfur over Lodi vineyards, "lolly gagging along" in a small Piper plane, as he put it. Suddenly a sulfur plume engulfed him and blocked his view of the sky.
He pulled up, but the plane was so low that it didn't work — Hamner heard something hitting the plane, apparently the vines beneath him.
"I was along for the ride at the point," Hamner said Friday from his Lodi home. "At Mariott's Great America it would have been a great ride, but not in that thing."
The plane landed upside down in a vineyard off Guard Road, west of Interstate 5 and south of Highway 12. The crash was just the latest escapade for the pilot who once flew combat missions over Vietnam and started his daredevil career as a smoke jumper.
Following the crash on Thursday, the next thing Hamner knew, something was burning to his left, not far from the fuel tank.
"I'm thinking, 'Oh lordy, this could get ugly fast.' But off to the right the window was busted out," he said. "I just shimmied out of the window, got up and high tailed it down through the vines."
Though the Federal Aviation Administration had said Thursday that Hamner broke a leg in the crash, his limbs were fine. He did, however, break his nose when the visor hit him.
Hamner also lost his eyebrows and eyelashes from the fire, and he saw an ophthalmologist for vision problems from the heat. The doctor gave him eye drops and ointments, and he should make a full recovery. Other than that, he felt just fine Friday, a day after the crash that destroyed the plane.
"Everybody swore up and down that I would be so sore I wouldn't be able to lift a cup of coffee but for some reason I'm not sore," he said. Yes, he could lift a coffee cup with no problem — except that he couldn't quite see how full the cup was, he added. The blistering skin and absence of eyebrows and eyelashes made him decline a request for a photo — because he'd have to put make-up on, he joked.
That good-natured attitude has probably helped him through more than one close call over the years.
Hamner got his start on adrenaline-heavy jobs as a smoke jumper with the U.S. Forest Service, leaping out of plane to fight fires in areas vehicles couldn't reach. One time, he was fighting a fire in Montana when he was surrounded by flames, standing on a rock outcrop that kept the fire from reaching him.
Then he joined the U.S. Air Force in 1969, started pilot training and would ultimately fly some 565 combat missions.
He spent two years flying transport planes in southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, then worked for Air America with the CIA. Just two weeks ago he attended an Air America reunion.
Hamner had dreamed of working in the airline industry after his four-year military stint ended, but the fuel shortages of the mid '70s led to pilot layoffs. He was living in Sacramento in 1975 when he came across a crop dusting pilot and thought that might be a good fit.
"It beats working for a living," Hamner said of what became a three-decade career.
But that career has now come to an end. Hamner, who turns 64 in a few weeks, was planning to stop crop dusting after this season, but Thursday's crash moved that date up a bit.
It's a relief for his wife of nearly 35 years, who got a call 10 minutes after Hamner walked away from the plane crash and headed to the hospital with a fellow crop duster.
"When he called at 6:50 in the morning, I knew something was wrong," Becky Hamner said.
Thursday wasn't the first crop dusting mishap Hamner had — though he's never had serious injuries in about 23,000 hours of flying.
There was the 2003 incident on a small runway in Herald, when Hamner's plane and a student's plane both landed at the same time and clipped one another. Hamner's plane had minimal damage, the student's plane had major damage and neither person was hurt.
And there was the time when, to use Hamner's words, he "went from aircraft commander to submarine commander."
It was about 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 28, 1977, — "not that I remember the specifics," he joked — and Hamner was dusting fields in Tracy. He was pulling up and gaining altitude when his plane hit a wire that wasn't visible in the dark.
Hamner found himself plunging into what at the time was a 210-foot river in Paradise Cut, he said. He simply swam to shore.
So, now that he's ending his crop dusting career, what's next for Hamner? His wife has a feeling he'll have no trouble staying busy by hunting with his dog and doing things on the computer.
Hamner also has a vague plan: "I think I'm going to spend my daughter's inheritance."
Contact reporter Layla Bohm at layla@lodinews.com.
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JF wrote on Jun 22, 2008 2:23 PM:
warrenb1973 wrote on Jun 22, 2008 10:04 AM:
WY wrote on Jun 21, 2008 11:51 PM:
WY wrote on Jun 21, 2008 11:50 PM:
WY wrote on Jun 21, 2008 11:49 PM:
You are BLESSED! "
WY wrote on Jun 21, 2008 11:47 PM:
As a little girl that grew up in the wild west of lodi, I watched a guy just like you crop the top of the vines by my house. It was a blast to watch. It was a private air show. I think we've all seen you fly around here. God speed, you feel better, And you know what they say....
Any landing you can walk awy from is a good one! "
annie2001 wrote on Jun 21, 2008 2:51 PM:
papercut wrote on Jun 21, 2008 2:33 PM:
T & C wrote on Jun 21, 2008 11:02 AM:
justme wrote on Jun 21, 2008 9:59 AM:
Comments on this story are now closed.