WINONA, Minn. — Federal aviation inspectors found no red flags were apparent before an ultra-light hobby plane crashed and killed at the pilot at the Winona airport 2-1/2 weeks ago. The pilot, Wayne Ledebuhghr, had bolted a new wing on his Australian-designed T-Lite and was on a test flight, according to to the inspectors. Ledebuhr was landing and had shifted his weight to steer the 200-pound craft. It was a small right correction followed by a 90-degree turn left. The right wingtip caught the ground. The aircraft tumbled. The details were from witnesses and an inspection of the wreckage. The report was what the National Transportation Safety Board calls a “30-day prelim.” The Board’s usual practice I to keep an accident file open a full year before classifying it as conclusive. The preliminary report says that Ledebuhr was making his third test flight of the day with the new fabric wing. The wing, a replacement for a two-year-old unit, was designed for easier hangar storage and hauling around. A friend who helped Ledebuhr attach the new wing said it was bolted firmly in place.

Windsport T-Lite tricycle. In same colors as Ledebuhr’s original wing.

Earlier: Parachute device not activated in fatal crash

Earlier: R.I.P.: Wayne Ledebuhr

Earlier: Cause of fatal Winona plane crash still unknown

Earlier: Winona aviation hobbyist dead in crash

Earlier: Pilot dead in crash at Winona airport

WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 38 emergency medical calls plus 9 fire calls in recent days:

> Tuesday, July 7:  7medical calls plus no fire calls.

> Monday, Julyn6: 2 medical calls plus 2 fire calls.

> Sunday, July 5: 3 medical calls plus 1 fire call.

> Saturday, July 4: 4 medical calls plus 3 fire call.

> Friday, July 3: 2 medical calls plus 4 fire calls.

> Thursday, July 2: 13 medical calls plus 3 fire calls.

> Wednesday, July 1: 7 medical calls plus no fire calls.

Earlier: Emergency, fire crews make 38 calls

WINONA, Minn. — A quick-thinking homeowner extinguished an attic fire after lightning struck a house near Fifth sand Sioux streets on the West Side. Damage was confined to the attic. There were no injuries, This was about 4 p.m. The fire was out when fire crews arrived. The firefighters found damaged insulation inside the attic. They used their extended-length ladder truck for an aerial inspection for hot spots

Bolt from thundering sky.  In 650 residential block of West Fifth Street. Image: Winona Fire Department

Sure looks real. The Jeep’s colors and markings closely resembled the World War II four-wheelers, which remain in production albeit through many  reincarnations.

Earlier: Adrenaline-surging scare at Viroqua gun show

WINONA, Minn. — A LeSueur driver, 116 miles from home, was arrested as drunk in a traffic stop on West Broadway Street in Winona. Stacy Jo Zinke, age 57, admitted she was drunk, the arresting deputy said. A breathalyzer test showed her blood was approaching 0.19% alcohol, more than twice the legal impairment level. The arrest was about 8:30 p.m.

Zinke. Also Bad plates, no license.

WINONA, Minn. — City maintenance crews asked police to help find vandals who damaged porta-potties at Gabryck Park on the Far East Side and on the Gavin Heights overlook on the on the bluffs. Police said they are handicapped by the lack of surveillance cameras at the sites. It wasn’t clear whether incidents, a couple miles apart, were related. Clear was that the vandals have no civic decency nor respect for legendary  figures with significant Winona legacies

Gabryck Park

At 950 East Wabasha Street. With baseball diamond and playgrounds. Named for Gene Gabrych, who played baseball for Winona’s Polish National Alliance team and helped the club draw huge crowds and an 18-3 record in 1938. He was expected to be drafted by the New York Yankees. He went to war instead. He was killed, age 29, after in the Foret de Mont Castre after the Normandy invasion. His unit encountered massive. His body was returned to a grieving Winona in 1948 for burial.

Garvin Heights

Overlooking Winona from 540 feet. It’s the namesake of Herbert Garvin, born 1862, who donated land for the bluff-top park. Garvin co-founded Bay State Milling in Winona, still. Major employer. Later president of Winona National Bank. An early promoter of Winona as nucleus of a growing railroad network. He also donated 43 acres of open land and woods that became Farmers Community Park between Stockton and Lewiston. Also bearing his name is Garvin Brook, which is a Winona County tributary to the Mississippi River.  Garvin died in 1938.

WINONA, Minn.— Police were too late to catch a man acting crazy and yelling and screaming and kicking and throwwg things at a parked car. This was about 11:45 a.m. in the 500 block of Mankato Avenue. Police suspected a homeless man but were awaiting surveillance video. Because a gaaage door was dented,  charges likely will include damage to property, police said.

WINONA, Minn. — Word seems to have spread among homeless people that a place to squat is a vacant house in the 150 block of East Broadway. For the second time in two days, police have rousted uninvited “house guests.” In the latest arrests, police were called by a neighbor about 7:30 p.m. for comings and goings at the house, where the elderly owner died a few months ago. The place has been locked and abandoned since. In making these arrests and also arrests the day before, police reported finding cocaine and items being packed up that belonged to the deceased woman. These included coins, decanters and collectible tea cup sets. The recent arrests:

WINONA, Minn. — Two men who were “riding the rails” were pulled off a Canadian Pacific freight that made a brief stop in Winona to have them removed. Cited for trespassing were:

> Angus Lee McKee, 27, of Tucson, Arizona.

> Kyle A. Swanson, 41, of Madison, Wisconsin.

Winona police were notified about 9:50 p.m. that a train with two hobos would be passing through town in 30 minutes. Through trains normally pass through town at 40n mph. This one coasted to a stop at the Amtrak depot on East Mark Street. Police were waiting. Police didn’t log where McKee and Swanson had climbed aboard or where they were headed. They were not jailed but released after the train ad resumed its journey.

How to catch a hobo

Most CP trains through Winonna have end points in Winnipeg, Chicago, New Orleans and Galveston. The company has thermal-mmaging  devices along its routes to catch problems — mostly mechanical irregularities that need attention  — and also free-riders inside or on  top of freight cars.

WINONA, Minn.— For an Independence Day weekend, police took relatively few citizen complaints about fireworks. On Saturday there were six calls from  the East End. On Sunday there were 16 calls from scattered points around town. Police didn’t find any of the celebrants. At Farmers Park out in the county, usually a favoroite place to set off fireworks, the ground was still soggy from flooding. Nobody was much around.

Earlier:  Storm saturates Farmers Park, downs trees

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WINONA, Minn. — Police arrested three people who were holed up in a house that had been vacant since the widow who lived there died a year or so ago. Police were called about 12:30 a.m.by a neighbor who was suspicious about strangers in and out of the house. At the address, in the 150 block of East Broadway, police found a woman on the lawn who said three friends were inside and gave officers their names. Police shouted for them to come out. Nobody did. Officers called for back-up officers and established a perimeter, then went inside. They found a woman on the first floor and then a man. In the attic was a second man hiding in a cardboard box but with his feet hanging out. The woman on the lawn outside was not arrested.  Police found a damaged door knob on an outside entrance. The door appeared to have been pried open.

LACROSSE, Wis. — Police scrambled every available officer to the Emplify hospital on a report of a gunman in the emergency room. It was a false alarm — a “swatting,” police call it. The word “swatting” is recent law-enforcement lingo for diverting police with a false report. It’s also is an old criminal ploy to draw police attention away from a premeditated crime such a bank heist. The fake Emplify call was at 10:57 p.m. Most “swatting” these days is miscreant anti-police harassing. Police Chief Shawn Kudron promised an investigation. Swatting usually also involves the FBI because interstate communication networks are used.

DODGE, Wis. — A man was stuck by a hit-and-run car and airlifted 27 air-miles to a LaCrosse hospital emergency room. His condition was believed to be non-life threatening. Deputies said the victim knew the driver. The incident was about 6 p.m. on County Road J in the Trempealeau River town of Dodge, population 400, across the Mississiippi Tuver from Winina;. Later, 40 miles north iof Dodge n Eau Caire County, deputies located the car they believed was involved. The vehicle was aabndoned. Deputies then found the driver, who was arrested. Authorities declined to release any names immediately or what they were learning about what triggered the incident.

VIROQUA, Minn. — Gun show organizers drove a Jeep with a swiveling machine-gun on top with the   weapon blazing into the crowd. The “bullets” were blanks. People nonetheless were horrified, said Mayor Krista Browne in confirming the incident. The gun show is a recurring event at the Vernon County fairgrounds. About 40 gun dealers typically rent tables at $40 each to display their wares. Admission is $5, kids free. Mayor Browne said the incident had people confused and frightened.

Copasetic trading. Typically the show is a routine sales affair. At county fairgrounds off Noth Main Street.

Independence afternoon.  Furling from the top rung of the St. Charles firefighter’s flagship ladder truck. Do you hear celebratory honking from drivers passing on U.S. Highway 14? Image: Steve Lunde

MIESVILLE, Minn. — A Red Wing driver was injured when his car left U.S, Highway 61 for the shortcut to Hastings. Jared John Schahczinski, 43, was taken 14 miles to the Red Wing hospital in non-critical condition. The accident was about 3:05 a.m. Goodhue County deputies said Schahczinski was turning into State Highway 316 when he lost control. He ended up across the median of four-lane Highway 61. The airbag deployed in his 2017 Infiniti Q60.

WINONA, Minn. — The car had no taillights, so the sheriff’s deputy tried to make a traffic stop. He driver took off like a bat out of hell. This was about 12:15 a.m. at the U.S. Highway 61 roundabout at Mankato Avenue.  The driver headed into town and squealed onto Riverbend Road and into the Walmart parking lot. Speeds were up to 80 mph, the deputy said. The driver slammed into a stray Walmart shopping cart as he zoomed onto Frontenac Drive, then back to Mankato, to Garvin Heights Road, vto Homer Road and other streets in between. Then he was out of town on State Highway 43. At Debi Lei Drive, he turned into one of the first driveways and stopped. Inside the deputy found Gabriel John Penic, age 22. His eyes were bloodshot, the lids droopy, and he smelled drunk, the deputy said. Penic declined to attempt roadside sobriety exercises. At jail he declined d blood-alcohol testing.

Penic. Deputies wrote him up for drunken driving, fleeing police, and refusing tests for alchol in his system. Oh, yes, he was charged also for the taillight violation.

ELBA, Minn. — A 7-year-old girl was airlifted to a Rochester hospital with head injuries from a bicycle fall at Whitewater State Park  This was about 5:10 p.m. The flight was 24 airmiles. Winona deputies were uncertain of her medical condition.

WINONA, Minn. — How much is Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes worth? The team is paying him $505 million over 10 years. How much is a Mahomes trading card worth? The owner of Northland Breaks, a Winona trading card shop on Harvester Street, said $225 in reporting a theft to police. The theft was discovered about 11:50 a.m.

WINONA, Minn. —A Winona woman on a motorized foot scooter was injured in a Mankato Avenue roundabout when she and a car collided. Ariel Chelsea Alaspa, age 21, was taken to the Winona hospital, a couple blocks away, to be checked over. Her injuries appeared sustainable, deputies said. The accident was about 9:30 a.m. Alaspa was heading east off Sarnia Street. The driver of the car, Lance Jacob Glover, 30, of Winona, was unhurt. The airbag of his 2019 Nissan Rogue did not deploy. He had entered roundabout headed toward the Sugar Loaf. landmark.