On Sunday 13 August 2013, I departed with my aircraft Safari PH-JOO from Oostwold Airport in the north of The Netherlands at 14:02 routing to Stadskanaal Airport. The total flight time would be 10-15 minutes. The plan was to refill the plane at that airport and then continue to make a cross country trip with my grandson. Everything was fine, the weather conditions fine.

Close to the destination we got engine problems. After informing the control tower that we had problems and had to land immediately the engine quit. I lost altitude and in the mean time a flew at 400 ft without any contact with the tower. I was forced to make an emergency landing in a nearby wheat field. During the landing, I was unable to maintain full directional control due to the soft surface tall wheat, the aircraft veered to the right causing substantial damage to the fuselage, wing, propeller and undercarriage. The stop was hard. We both emerged unscathed. It was later found that the header tank was very low on fuel and that the cause of the accident was an engine stoppage due to fuel starvation.

Investigation at the accident site showed that I had adequate fuel on board for the intended flight.

It became silent, fuel spoiled out of the plane and we were happy to hear the ELT was activated by the impact at with the ground. This was the only contact we had because all communication equipment was damaged. Within twenty minutes the police and medical assistance found us.

The peeping noise from the ELT was a great thing to hear. We knew that somebody will help us.