Report: Pilot in fatal Holland crash struck pole

Gerald Brinkerhuff died Oct. 6 as he practiced touch and go landings. Pamela Sullivan of the National Transportation Safety Board said she discovered that Brinkerhuff’s Q-200 aircraft clipped the approach light pole as the 65-year-old Gobles man came in about 6:35 p.m.

The Holland Sentinel reported the pole was 14 feet, 8 inches tall.

Brinkerhuff’s plane went into the ground and suffered substantial damage.

In her preliminary report, Sullivan wrote that Brinkerhuff and his plane came to a rest 134 feet away from the runway. He was the experimental aircraft’s sole occupant.