LOCAL
2A — THE OBSERVER
TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2020
Baker County
No one injured when plane makes emergency crash landing
By Samantha O’Conner
EO Media Group
BAKER CITY — Tom Van
Diepen and his passenger, Jason
Dexter, took off from the Baker City
Airport in Van Diepen’s Cessna 170
single-engine plane Thursday after-
noon intending on a short flight,
just to warm the engine’s oil prior
to changing the fluid.
The friends’ leisurely jaunt on a
sunny day turned bumpy toward
the end. Literally.
As they flew over the hills west
of Baker City, Van Diepen, 71, no-
ticed that the Cessna’s engine was
vibrating the entire aircraft.
Van Diepen, who has been a pilot
since 1975, said his initial reaction
was: “This is not a good sign.”
Dexter’s response was similar: “I
said, Well, that ain’t good.’ “
Van Diepen didn’t think he could
make it back to the airport, which
was several miles to the north, and
he didn’t want to risk trying to land
on Highway 7.
There’s a private airstrip in the
area west of Stices Gulch, several
miles to the south. But Van Diepen
didn’t know how much snow there
might be on that landing strip so
he settled on a field beside High-
way 7 in Bowen Valley, a few miles
south of Baker City.
“I just did a precautionary land-
ing on the Jensens’ hay field,” Van
Diepen said.
He was able to land about 5 to 10
minutes after noticing the engine
vibration. Although the landing
was uneventful and neither Van
Diepen nor Dexter was hurt, the
day’s challenges weren’t over.
While Van Diepen was taxiing
the plane toward a road, he rolled
into an irrigation ditch.
“We landed clear on the other
side and I was just taxiing over
to Juniper Lane to be closer to a
house with a phone so I didn’t have
to walk so far,” he said. “If I had just
stopped right there, we would have
been in a lot better shape.”
The plane sustained damage
that will take a number of months
to repair at Baker Aircraft, Van
Diepen said.
The incident wasn’t his first
unplanned landing during his 45
years as a pilot.
“I blew an engine once and then I
had the same thing that happened
now. It was running rough, so I
landed in Burns but I just landed
on the airport,” he said.
Photo by S. John Collins/EO Media Group
Tom Van Diepen, fourth from left, works with Clint Morrison, right,
Bowen Valley Rural Fire District volunteer, and a backhoe operator,
Chase Giesbrecht, to raise a downed plane out of a field ditch in
Bowen Valley Thursday. Three others shown, from left, are Sarah
Rea, Dusty Brown and Jason Dexter. Dexter was alongside pilot
Tom Van Diepen as a passenger during the ordeal.
Public Health
SWITCH
Ben Lonergan/EO Media Group
A Two Rivers Correctional Institution inmate Monday
helps to install the basketball floor at the Pendleton Con-
vention Center in preparation for the state 2A basketball
tournament later this week.
OSAA: 2A tourney to
go on as planned
By Alex Castle
EO Media Group
PENDLETON — As Uma-
tilla County and the state of
Oregon respond to confirmed
cases of the coronavirus, the
Oregon School Activities As-
sociation is moving forward
as planned with the Class 2A
State High School Basketball
Championships, slated to
take place at the Pendleton
Convention Center March 5-7.
“At this point, we haven’t
had conversations about
modifying or cancelling the
event,” said OSAA Execu-
tive Director Peter Weber. “If
things change and we need
to make accommodations,
we’ll be in contact with state
health authorities and our
schools and do so.”
The Oregon Health Au-
thority confirmed Monday
morning that an adult Or-
egon resident from Umatilla
County was the state’s third
presumptive positive case of
COVID-19, which had been
confirmed in more than 40
people across 12 total U.S.
states and killed six people
in the state of Washington as
of Monday afternoon.
At this time, the state
health authority isn’t recom-
mending the cancellation of
the tournament, or any other
public events in the area.
“While cancelling events or
closing schools are tools that
can help us control this, these
aren’t tools that OHA or local
public health partners are us-
ing widely at this time,” said
Dean Sidelinger, an Oregon
state health officer. “We are
really assessing situation by
situation, what is the risk in
the particular setting and
making those recommenda-
tions based on those risks.”
This year’s tournament
will feature eight girls and
eight boys teams represent-
ing 14 schools that will be
traveling from the state’s
southern coasts and the
Portland area out east, while
Union High School’s girls
team is the region’s sole rep-
resentative and enters as the
tournament’s No. 2 seed.
For now, Union Superin-
tendent Carter Wells said
the school is monitoring the
situation in Umatilla County
as it develops.
“We’re going to know
much more come Wednes-
day of what is going on over
there. Right now, it’s a little
too early about how much
that’s going to be impacted
other than we’re going to
have preventative measures
in place for our kids going
over the hill,” he said. “We’re
going to make sure they are
sanitizing hands, or maybe
sanitizing the basketball
after a shootaround.”
Weber said the OSAA is
also monitoring the situation
and communicating with
the state health authority on
what precautions to take for
this week’s 2A tournament,
along with the other five
classifications that will come
together at various sites
around the state to compete
over the next few weeks.
Many of those precautions
include trying to deter those
who may be contagious from
attending, stocking up on
sanitation supplies and con-
ducting full venue cleanings
before and during the events.
While school officials have
reached out to the OSAA
looking for more details
and information on how its
responding to the risks posed
by the coronavirus and what
precautions they should take,
Weber said nobody has yet
to express that they won’t
attend due to the concerns.
“Everybody is sort of in
the same boat right now,” he
said. “I think everyone has a
heightened concern, as do we.”
Weber said weather has
forced the OSAA to make
accommodations and adjust-
ments at its championship
events in the past, but the
spread of the H1N1 virus in
2009 was the only time he
could remember dealing with
a virus that was posing risks
to its events.
Though the classifications
have changed and evolved
over the years, small schools
in Oregon have been com-
peting for state basketball
championships in Pendleton
without fail since 1964.
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