Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.SEWARD, Neb. — Jeff Clausen headed out Sunday morning to meet his friend Mark Pearson at the Seward Municipal Airport, where they boarded Mark's newly purchased, rainbow-painted, 29-year-old Christen Eagle biplane.
It was a beautiful day and Jeff's 58th birthday, and the two pilots — Jeff from Lincoln and Mark from Plymouth, Neb. — were out to share the joy of flying once again.
This would be Mark's first flight after buying the plane, which initially was registered in 1982.
During their college days, Jeff taught Mark how to fly, and over the years they frequently took to the air together in each other's airplanes. The Eagle is a popular sport aircraft known for its aerobatic performance capabilities.
"They just decided to go out for a cruise," Jeff's son, Jack, said Monday. "It was a fine plane."
Shortly after the single-engine aircraft lifted off the runway, it crashed into a cornfield a half-mile away. Clausen and Pearson, 56, were killed.
Tim LeBaron, senior air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, said Monday that Pearson was in the rear seat, indicating he was flying the plane. Seward County Sheriff Joe Yocum said Clausen was in the front seat, giving instruction.
LeBaron said insurance companies typically require instruction for pilots flying newly purchased aircraft. He came to Seward to collect information for the safety board's investigation into the crash and spoke at a press conference Monday at the airport.
LeBaron said Clausen had previously owned the plane, although others owned it in between the two men. He said the plane's flight controls were found and were hooked up correctly.
The aircraft had fuel and reportedly had filled up in Seward, and the weather appeared to be good.
LeBaron said he would make a preliminary report in five days and a "factual report" to the safety board in six months. The board issues the final report.
"It's through accidents like this one that we hope to make flying safer," LeBaron said.
He said the Eagle was an "experimental amateur-built aircraft" sold as a kit. It's popular, he said, but takes more skill to fly than some other small aircraft.
In general, experimental aircraft are those not certified for commercial passenger or cargo aviation but include many models with proven flying capabilities. The Christen Eagle was developed in the 1970s and is used frequently in air shows for aerobatic displays.
Sheriff Yocum said autopsies have been ordered as part of the investigation, but it appeared the two men died from injuries caused by the crash.
He said the airplane crossed Fletcher Road, which runs north of the airport property. Another pilot helped locate the wreckage by viewing the cornfield from above.
Crews reached the aircraft soon after the 9:38 a.m. crash, but the two men were dead at the scene.
Jack Clausen said his father learned to fly at age 16, while he was a student at Ainsworth (Neb.) High School, and eventually was able to turn his aviation hobby into a third career.
He was a criminal justice major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and worked as a state parole officer for a decade or more. Then he and a friend opened Baker's Candies in Greenwood, Neb.
But he continued flying, and about eight years ago, he became a full-time charter pilot for Silverhawk Aviation of Lincoln, also serving as director of operations and teaching others how to fly, including his son.
The older Clausen owned various airplanes, including some Piper Cubs that he fixed up and later sold.
Pearson, a member of a longtime family in the Plymouth area, was a full-time farmer with irrigated cropland. He had a hangar and a landing strip on his land.
Clausen's other survivors include his wife, Mary.
Pearson is survived by his wife, Jeanette, and daughter, Tiffany.
Pearson was past president of the Flying Conestogas, a flying club for pilots in the Beatrice and Fairbury area, said Dr. Duane Koenig of Plymouth.
"Everybody liked him," Koenig said of Pearson. "He was always trying to help people."
Contact the writer: 402-444-1080, steve.jordon@owh.com
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