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A small Air Tractor AT-501 airplane had just finished spraying for mosquitos today when it had to make an emergency landing in a vineyard north of Victor.
The airplane's owner said there were no injuries when the fixed-wing, single-engine airplane came to rest north of Highway 12 near Alpine Road. Peter Precissi, of Lodi-based Precissi Flying Service a well established crop spraying company, said the pilot was about five minutes from base when he had engine trouble.
Precissi declined to name the pilot but said he had 35 years of flying experience and had never before had such an incident. He said the pilot walked away from the crash, called a company truck that was in the area and that the company then contacted authorities.
He was surprised to learn that fire and medical crews, a medical helicopter and San Joaquin County sheriff's deputies raced to the scene with sirens blaring and lights flashing. Precissi said the company contacted the county's mosquito abatement center, which had contracted the job, and that authorities were notified but that no medical help was needed.
However, rescue crews began looking for the pilot, and sheriff's dispatchers contacted local hospitals to ask they'd tended to a airplane crash victim. An ambulance was ultimately called off, and a helicopter returned to its base at the Lodi airport.
The yellow AT-501 plane was built by Air Tractor, Inc. in 1987 and has a 600-horse-power engine, according to airplane registration databases. It is registered to Precissi's North Lower Sacramento Road business in Lodi. The business has been open since 1945 and maintains a number of airplanes including some of the oldest crop spraying biplanes in the U.S.A,Precissi said.
Sheriff's deputies notified the National Transportation Safety Board, and Precissi said they'd already cleared him to take apart the airplane and move it. The Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees all such emergencies, is also involved.
The incident happened two days after the pilot of a crop-duster walked away uninjured after crash-landing in Tracy. That $75,000 plane was carrying fertilizer to spray over a grape field and was destroyed.

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