News : Local pilot \'mourning\' his home-built plane after hitting deer on Vinton runway

Miss Underestimated, the RV-7A plane that John Steigelmeyer spent countless hours building, was damaged on the runway in Vinton on Saturday when it hit a deer.

"I had very little time to react, but had enough time when the third deer came close to mentally say "Oh ____!" which more than one reporter has said were the last words on the voice recorder before impact," he said.

Steigelmeyer was not injured, but his plane sustained significant damage.

"I am O.K.; Miss Underestimated is in hospital. Not sure if she will survive," Steigelmeyer said. Steigelmeyer said his plane's name, was inspired not so much by famous quote by President George W. Bush, but rather from another pilot who called his home-built plane "Miss Appropriated Funds." Steigelmeyer said he significantly "miss underestimated" how much time and money it would take to build the plane. While Miss Underestimated's engine came assembled, virtually every other part required hours of assembly and countless rivets, not to mention attending a week-long builder's session. "I am in mourning -- she was my child. She is one (very big) mess." Officials from the FAA Flight Standards District Office out of Ankeny will visit the airport hangar to take a look at the plane on Thursday morning, said Steigelmeyer. "The insurance adjuster will come later; I'm not sure what to do next," he said. Steigelmeyer -- whose piloting experience includes years of flying Air Force KC-135 refueling tankers (which could carry 200,000 pounds of jet fuel) and TWA Boeing 717 jets with a passenger capacity of 106 -- says one of the things the federal officials are now examining is his credentials for flying the two-person, 1250-pound RV-7A. He is now in the process of completing and filing the required FAA/NTSB accident reports. The official report (NTSB 6120.1) is 11 pages long and includes a place for the pilot to draw diagrams of the incident.

See a 2010 Vinton Today story about the plane and how Steigelmeyer built it, along with pictures of Miss Underestimated HERE.