The 94-year-old pilot who has walked away from multiple crashes

The 94-year-old pilot who crashed into a paddock on Thursday has already walked away from several crashes involving his home built replica aircraft.

Emergency services were called to a paddock on Dukes Rd, Mosgiel at 3.52pm on Thursday, after reports a home-built aircraft was upside down, with the pilot sustaining moderate injuries.

That pilot was Thomas Grant, 94, who owns two home-built aircraft which he flies from his private landing strip at his property on Old Brighton Rd, near Kaikorai Lagoon – about 12kms from the crash site.

Grant, who was not admitted to hospital, was approached for an interview but ‘’he would see no point in it’’, his wife Jeanette said, and anyway he had an aircraft to repair.

That was after Thursday’s test flight and forced landing, ‘’which tells it all’’, she said.

He was taken to Dunedin Hospital after the crash, but after a few tests ‘’they let him come home’’.

‘’He seems to do things right,’’ she said, referring to his ability to walk away from crashes unscathed.

He continued to fly each week usually in an SE5a, a replica of a British single-seat fighter used in World War One, she said.

The crashed plane, according to Civil Aviation Authority records, was a Pietenpol G-L – a replica of a plane first built in 1928.

Grant was also the pilot of a biplane which crashed near his property on November 3, 2008, after the home-built Albatros DV replica, which was also a World War One era aircraft, lost power and nose-dived.

He was able to walk away uninjured.

In an interview following the crash, Grant told the Otago Daily Times he first gained his pilot’s licence in 1956.

“I fly as often as possible, and still do some aerobatics,’’ he told the paper.

‘’I’ve flown all around New Zealand in the SE 5a, landing in paddocks in rough weather. I’ll stop flying when I’ve had enough, or I’m not allowed.”

Seven years later and Grant was involved in another crash, this time at Ocean View on October 24, 2015.

The then 87-year-old had hit a fence during an emergency landing, the Otago Daily Times reported.

”He got out of this alive and undamaged and that’s a good landing,” Jeanette Grant told the paper.

”He is an exceptional flier. He just did the right things.”

While Grant was able to walk away from those incidents, he suffered critical injuries when he was run over by a tractor at his property on December 20, 2019.

Despite his injuries he was able to raise the alarm after returning to his home on a ride-on lawn mower.