VERNALIS — Two men walked away almost entirely unharmed after crash landing a single-engine airplane in a lima bean field off Gaffery Road south of Vernalis on Tuesday morning.

Flight instructor Rick Tutt, 59, owner of R.J. Tutt Aviation in Stockton, was flying the Piper Malibu along with the plane’s owner, Frank Worner, 65, of Concord. The flight was an instructional one required by Worner’s insurance company, and it began in Concord and was to end in Tracy.

But around 10 a.m., as Tutt and Worner circled the plane to the south of Vernalis to come in for their landing, smoke appeared in the cockpit. Tutt said he thought it was electrical smoke, so he shut off the plane’s electrical system.

“We had just finished practicing smoke in the cabin” about 20 minutes earlier, Worner said.

When the smoke continued to fill the cockpit, Tutt grew more concerned — but he thought they could evacuate the smoke from the cockpit and land in Tracy as planned.

But a few minutes later, at more than 1,000 feet up, the engine failed.

Farmworker Jose Ruiz saw the plane coming in low from a safe distance away. He watched as Tutt landed the plane across the row crops — like landing on a washboard, Tutt said — and kept the wings flat throughout the landing.

“They landed pretty good,” Ruiz said. “Nothing happened. They’re lucky.”

Tutt acknowledged the good fortune but said his 22 years as a flight instructor helped, too. He said he tried to fly into the wind to decrease the plane’s speed as it approached the ground.

“Pilots fall back on their training,” he said. “We had a favorable outcome.

“You train for this moment, but you hope it never comes. We’re very fortunate to be here.”

Tutt said he saw flames in the cockpit while the plane was still in the air. Once he and Worner got out, they noticed a small fire burning near the plane’s nose, which had buried itself into the dirt.

Reluctant to crawl under the plane to reach its fire extinguisher, Tutt watched as the fire burned itself out before rescue workers arrived. Tutt suffered no injuries, and Worner had only a scrape on his knee.

Sgt. John Walker of the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department said the cause of the engine failure was unknown but that the Federal Aviation Administration would be investigating the crash. According to the FAA Web site, preliminary reports are typically not available until at least one or two days after an incident.

Worner, who said he’s been flying for 30 years, said the crash would not deter him from getting back in the air “as soon as I can.” Asked if Tutt was a hero, Worner was matter-of-fact.

“He’s a good instructor,” he said.

• Contact James Leonard at 892-6187 or james@pattersonirrigator.com.