I work at the 330 squadron at Bodø Air Force Base, Norway. My job is to receive and distribute information to the pilots who operate Sea King Helicopters and do search and Rescue missions in the north of norway.

When I got to work this morning, the weather was horrible. It was dark, rainy, with winds blowing at 40 knots, gusting 66 knots. It was cloudy, with lightening and thunderstorms.

At 8:50AM we received a call from Bodø controll tower, that a Kato Airline aircraft had sendt out a mayday north of the area Fauske. The rescuemen rolled out and started the helicopter at once. Speculations were already then that the aircraft had been hit by a lightning. We were informed that there were two pilots and 2 passengers onboard the aicraft.

At 9:05 AM the light of the Dornier 228 can be seen making its way to final for rwy25 at Bodø. When I saw it I couldn't believe what I saw. The plane was dipping wildly up and down, and it was clear that the pilot had serious trouble controling the elevators. He kept going up and down untill he was nearly down on the tarmac, when suddenly he pulled up, HARD! I've never seen a civil aircraft climb like that before. It soon disappeared out of my sight.

9:09 AM; Kato Air is once more lined up for the rwy25 approach. Still climbing and diving almost uncontrolably on the approach. Fireengines and ambulanses wait on the ground, and the sea King is ready to go if the plane goes down elsewhere than on the rwy. I see the lights on the aircraft go up and down, while it slowly descends. Sudenly it disappears behind the terminal building (which is normal for aircrafts landing rwy25 seen from my angle.), reappears just above the roof of the terminal, and disappears once more. I wait to see it come rolling on the rwy on the right side of the building, but nothing happens. "He's down" says another person watching next to me. Ambulances and fire engines rush towards the scene.

9:13AM; Rescue crew report over the radio that the plane hit the field just short of the rwy, went back in the air, and slammed onto the rwy, coming to a quick stop. All onboard got out of the plane, one with injury to the neck and another with hip injury. The Sea King was called off, and the injured taken to hospital.

The airport shut down after this untill 1:05 PM, when the first aircrafts were allowed down on the partly closed rwy.

This was the first time I've seen a plane crash, and I hope I won't have to see many more of these. It can't have been much fun sitting in the plane in the storm when it gets hit by lightning, and the pilot has to climb and dive constantly for 15 minutes before slamming the plane to the ground.

Plane was a complete wreck btw, as can be seen in this thread. http://www.airliners.net/discussions/general_aviation/read.main/1288261/

Just part of being with the 330 rescue squadron I guess, hope we don't get too many missions in the future...

Thom@s