2 injured in freak accident at PIA

By ED RUNYAN

runyan@vindy.com

VIENNA

A freak accident seriously injured two students at the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics students where a propeller somehow started on an engine on which they were working.

A 911 caller said an aircraft engine at the school at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport “went off in a hangar and it struck someone in the face with the propeller.”

That young male student suffered serious injuries but was in surgery a few hours later, Vienna Police Chief Bob Ludt told reporters outside the school, which is just north of the airport terminal.

A second young male student was also hit in the arm by the propeller.

Both students were taken to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital for treatment after the 10:49 a.m. accident.

A dispatched call summary states “brain is exposed” for one victim, and “the arm is still intact” for the second.

Ludt said the engine was on a stand when it apparently started running and struck the students.

The PIA is an aviation mechanics school that has been in operation at the airport since 2006. Students assemble and disassemble engines on stands, but they do not start them inside the hangar, so it was a “freak accident,” Ludt said. Any time engines are running, it takes place outside the hangar, he said.

Joseph DeRamo, campus director, answered the phone at the school a few hours later and said the school might be providing a statement later Wednesday, but said he could not comment.

Calls to the PIA’s main office for comment were not returned.

Officials did not release the names nor the conditions of the injured students.

Ludt said he called the county coroner’s office, the Ohio State Highway Patrol and the Federal Aviation Administration after the accident to make sure anyone was notified that needed to be, but the FAA did not plan to respond because the engine was not in an aircraft. Neither of the other agencies responded, either, Ludt said.

The school completed a $1.3 million expansion of the facility in September 2017. It included classrooms for learning hands-on electronics, welding, blueprint schematics and wiring, a student-resource center with a computer lab, administrative offices and conference rooms.

This is the second tragedy involving students at the school in the past seven months.

On Oct. 13, PIA student Michael Tsarnas, 41, of Campbell was killed and student Melissa Stroud, then 19, was injured when the two went to Stroud’s apartment on Warren Avenue in Niles so Stroud could remove belongings from the apartment after the breakup of her relationship with Edward D. Anderson, 21.

Anderson showed up while they were there. He stabbed Tsarnas to death and also stabbed Stroud, who survived.

Anderson later pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and felonious assault and was sentenced to 17 years in prison.