A Cheney man perished in the crash of a light plane that appeared to experience engine problems prior to striking the Spokane River just above Upriver Dam and sinking last Thursday.
Richard Runyon was one of two men aboard a 1996 Piper Malibu that took off from Felts Field just before 4 p.m., May 7. According to a news release from the Spokane Fire Department, Felts Field Air Traffic Control Tower staff contacted Spokane police and fire departments at 3:54 p.m. reporting that the aircraft had contacted the tower and declared an in-flight emergency.
According to other media sources, witnesses said the plane appeared to be having difficulty with its altitude and that the engine sounded like it was at high RPMs. Spokane police and fire units were en route to Felts Field when they were contacted by witnesses that the plane had impacted the water and remained afloat for a short period of time before sinking.
At 4:04 p.m. the incident was upgraded to a water rescue event, and other resources from the Spokane Fire Department along with units from the Spokane Valley Fire Department and the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office Dive Team were dispatched. According to the news release, several responding units’ access to the site was impeded and delayed for several minutes by a slow-moving Union Pacific freight train.
Eventually 11 agencies were involved in the rescue, and three dive team members were able to extricate Runyon and the other man, Lyndon Amestoy, after being submerged for 30 minutes. Rescuers attempted to revive both men onshore, but were not successful.
Runyon was an experienced pilot who flew U.S. Air Force T-38 trainers, the UH-1N helicopter for the Search and Rescue unit at Fairchild Air Force Base and attended the Naval Test School at Patuxent River, Md., graduating at the top of his class. After he retired from the military, he and his wife and their two daughters returned to the area to build a home near Cheney, “The Flying R Ranch.”
Runyon eventually became an engineer and test pilot at Rocket Engineering, an aviation aftermarket firm near Felts Field, in 1997. He was a private pilot and a member of the Experimental Aircraft Association.
Runyon’s wife, Karen, was a math teacher at Cheney High School, and is the Cheney Education Association union president.
Memorial services for Richard Runyon are Saturday, May 16, at 10:30 a.m. at Cheney’s United Methodist Church and at Rocket Engineering at 5 p.m. CHS principal Troy Heuett said in an email that “expressions of sympathy” should be sent to “The Karen Runyon Family, 16517 S. Dover Road, Cheney, 99004.
John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.
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