Harrison Ford says he doesn’t remember the emergency crash landing of his Ryan PT-22 on a Santa Monica golf course last March because of amnesia caused by his medical treatment. In his first public statement about the mishap (dressed as a dog dressed as a hot dog) on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Oct. 30, Ford said his doctors have told him the general anesthesia he received after the crash wiped out most of his memory of the event. “I remember the engine stopping. I remember that part very well,” he told Kimmel. He also said he remembers rejecting an air traffic controller’s suggestion that he join the pattern for a return to the airport.
As we reported in August, the NTSB’s final report blamed the engine failure on the main metering jet in the carburetor coming loose. The part that Ford doesn’t remember involves the Ryan clipping a tree before hitting a fairway hard enough to shear off the landing gear. Ford told Kimmel he didn’t know what had happened until five days after the crash. Ford was seen flying a helicopter with an instructor in May but it’s not clear how much flying he’d done since. His third class medical was restored in July, according to the FAA database.
