NASHUA — The pilot injured in a gyrocopter crash at the Nashua airport last week says he is thankful he wasn’t more seriously hurt — and doesn’t remember a minute of the incident.
James DeBruycker, 70, of Nashua said doctors have told him he may have suffered a stroke just before his experimental aircraft — he prefers the term ‘gyroplane’ — went off a runway at Nashua Airport at Boire Field during takeoff on Jan. 15.
“The plane stayed on the runway until nearly taxiway C, veered into the grass and there’s a small ramp from the grass to the taxiway which sent me airborne and tumbling forward,” said DeBruycker. “It came to rest between two snowplows, which was weird. I don’t remember anything from moving to the runway until after entering the hospital.”
DeBruycker said he broke two vertebrae and a small bone in his foot.
“I think I might have used up my bucket of luck on that one,” said DeBruycker. “I wasn’t conscious, so that might have made me more pliable and helped in the crash.”
Sgt. Chris DiTullio of the Nashua Police Department said DeBruycker needed to be extricated from the wreckage of the gyroplane.
DeBruycker said there are no factory-made gyroplanes in the U.S.
“You have to build them,” DeBruycker said. “You have to help build at least 51 percent of it as part of the license process.”
The price tag on a gyroplane ranges from $95,000 to $160,000. The aircraft is powered by a sole propeller and large rotor, allowing it to reach an altitude of about 1,500 feet and cruise up to 120 mph. DeBruycker said he purchased his last year, and went to Italy on July 2 to help build it. He returned to the U.S. on July 13.
“The process went very quickly,” said DeBruycker, a flight enthusiast who recently retired from a systems design lab at Raytheon in Tewksbury, Mass. He said the flight on Jan. 15 would have been his “fifth or sixth” since building it.
“We flew it in Italy, to make sure there were no problems with it,” said DeBruycker.
His flight plan last week would have taken him across the border and over Massachusetts communities like Gardner and Orange, before returning to the Gate City.
The cause of the accident is under investigation by the New Hampshire Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). DeBruycker said the FAA has footage from a camera he had on board, which he hopes helps with the investigation.
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