By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

MINONK, Ill. — Retired educator Brad Kuchan, 54, a self-described hobby farmer from central Illinois, had anticipated for two years the day he would harvest his small field of oats while driving the semi-restored, 1963 Massey Ferguson Super 35 combine he recently purchased from a retiring farmer.

But when that day – July 15 – finally arrived, it didn’t take long before a careless act by an aerial applicator ruined Kuchan’s dream harvest and may have threatened both his and a close friend’s lives.

“(The plane) came in from directly behind me at about 30 feet. Suddenly I heard this deafening roar and my head jerked up. The pilot was literally giving me a haircut,” said Kuchan, adding the act was witnessed by a friend, Tom Nations, of Tuscola, who was standing nearby photographing the combine in action.
“I think it was very intentional. It was extremely frightening and extremely concerning because something was dumped on us. (The substance) is being tested by the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) as we speak.”

A call to the IDOA for details or an update Monday morning was not returned by press time.

After a visit to a hospital emergency room revealed no immediate ill health effects, Kuchan said he turned his clothing over to the IDOA in order to collect samples of the chemical or other substance that was dumped on him and his combine. It likewise suffered no immediate ill effects from the strafing. Kuchan also filed a complaint against the pilot with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

He said a person who identified himself as the pilot contacted him following the incident and provided a Delaware mailing address, while identifying his affiliation with an area agricultural business. Kuchan declined to identify the pilot or his employer.

“With the investigation, I don’t want to name the pilot and who he flies with. He has been an applicator here in Illinois for four years. He is very young, in his early twenties,” he said. “I’m not sure we don’t have someone here who lacks the maturity and the judgment to do what he is doing. He could very easily get himself and other, innocent people killed.”

More than two weeks after the incident, Kuchan, whose 4.16-acre oat field is located just to the southwest of Toluca, was still having difficulty coming to terms with the actions of the pilot.
“My (field) is located within the city of Toluca. To descend to that altitude to buzz my combine ... created an extremely dangerous situation for the houses in my neighborhood. It was absolutely unacceptable behavior,” he said. “An aerial applicator has to be held to a higher standard of responsibility.”

Kuchan purchased the Massey Ferguson, which he said performed “flawlessly” during the interrupted oat harvest, from a Madison, Wis.-area farmer who was “getting out of row crop stuff and going to hay and pasture rental.” Kuchan spent about 18 months “tightening, greasing and tweaking it with a fine-tooth comb” while getting it ready to combine oats.

Kuchan, who resides in and taught high school in Minonk, purchased a small tract of land down the road from his homestead and prepared it for sowing with two varieties of oats in anticipation of his first harvest.

“I’m a retired teacher who bought a little acreage just to kind of re-create some memories of my childhood,” he said. “I don’t depend on (farming) to pay my light bill.”

Kuchan managed to harvest approximately 72 bushels of oats per acre, and sold the bounty to two buyers. The events of the day, however, will long overshadow and taint the memory of the harvest, he indicated.

“It would have been a very happy and nostalgic day for me. The pilot took an exciting event that I had spent several years and a great deal of money preparing for and absolutely destroyed it. I’m very unhappy about it.”