The Eugene Police Department pushed an old Honda Civic into a 40-foot-deep gravel pit northeast of Eugene as part of a training exercise for the department’s Major Collision Investigation team on Aug. 31.
EPD Sgt. Peter Aguilar said that when a vehicle loses contact with the ground, different strategies than would be used for a typical car crash are required to investigate the incident. Since an airborne car leaves no skid marks or gouges on the road, the only determinant of a car’s speed is how far it flew.
Officer Tom Schulke drove behind the Civic in the EPD’s officer training car, which is outfitted with a heavy iron bumper. After pushing the Civic at about 30 miles per hour, he braked as the Civic plunged into the pit.

While the Civic survived the fall in one piece, Springfield Police Department detective Robert Conrad observed that the front wheels were pushed back in their wells and the front bumper was flattened. He said the radiator was probably smashed against the engine and that if the ditch had been deeper, the car would have flipped over on its back.
EPD spokeswoman Kerry Delf said that while the police department frequently conducts training exercises, scenarios like this one are rare. She added that because the use of the gravel pit and the Honda Civic were donated – by EGGE Sand & Gravel and Farwell’s Towing, respectively – the main cost for the police department was the officers’ time.
Aguilar said that while the police department has not dealt with an airborne vehicle incident since 2002, the methodologies learned at the exercise will also reinforce what officers do on a regular basis.