Shortly before he crashed, Wingate, 62, radioed the Covington airport to inform them that he’d have to make an emergency landing because he was low on fuel. The Xenia resident had taken off from the Dayton-Wright Bros. Airport in Miami Twp. to attend a close friend’s funeral, his wife said. Two crop dusters located the wreckage and rescued Wingate.
“It’s your worst nightmare,” Katherine Wingate said Friday during a video interview with the newspaper from the Elvis Presley Trauma Center at Regional One Health hospital in Memphis, where her husband was listed in critical but stable condition Friday night.
A physician herself, Katherine Wingate said she’s felt helpless to treat her husband. He remains unconscious and needs a ventilator to assist with his breathing since his lungs collapsed during the crash. Wingate underwent surgery to repair broken bones, and doctors still don’t know the extent of the brain injury he suffered, his wife said.
“I’m usually the one calling the shots, giving the orders, healing the sick,” she said. “It’s kind of hard to be the one on the other side of the equation. I just want to hear his voice.”
Although authorities believe her husband’s plane crashed because it ran out of fuel, Katherine Wingate said it’s unlikely that he miscalculated how much fuel he’d need.
“He’d accounted for the headwind, he’d accounted for the miles,” she said. “He knew that plane well. He’d taken long trips on that plane before.”
Crashes not uncommon
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash, and should have preliminary results in a few weeks, officials said.
Aircrafts running out of fuel and crashing is not uncommon in the United States. Since 2005, there have been 328 such crashes involving airplanes and helicopters, according to NTSB data the Dayton Daily News requested. Of those crashes, three were in Ohio — Middletown, 2013; Louisville, 2009 and Edinburg, 2007.
In the nationwide crashes, 51 people died, 77 were seriously injured and 145 people received minor injuries. Nearly 300 people received no injuries in those crashes, according to the data.
Kent Wingate is a retired Air Force administrator and chairman and an instructor of Sinclair Community College’s aviation program. He’s been teaching at the school for the past five years, said Adam Murka, Sinclair’s spokesman and one of Wingate’s colleagues. Wingate has been pivotal in bolstering their aviation program, Murka said.
“Kent is a very dedicated instructor he cares a great deal about his students; he has a passion for aviation,” Murka said. “He has a passion for education. He’s a detail-oriented person and meticulous.”
As for the crop dusters who spotted Wingate’s plane wreckage and saved his life — Ben Baker and Rick Finney — Katherine said her thanks is not enough.
“(Finney) was God’s man for the hour. He had the EMT training. He rescued him,” she said. “It was miraculous.”
Many people in the Dayton community have offered prayers and assistance, and both will be critical for her husband, who has a “long recovery” ahead, Katherine Wingate said.
“We love him very much, and we want him to recover and come back to us,” she said through tears. “We just continue to covet prayers.”
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