ST. GEORGE – Airport and other emergency crews responded to assist the pilot of an airborne plane who was having difficulty getting the landing gear on his Beechcraft Baron down so that he could land safely at St. George Municipal Airport Monday morning.
This is the fifth emergency landing Bill Williams, of Sky Ranch in Hurricane, has had to make in his 50 years of flying.
Williams said he took off this morning and was on his way to Page, Arizona, with his wife, son and a neighbor, but when the group got ready to land in Page, the landing gear would not come down.
“There’s emergency procedures that you follow,” Williams said, “and I practice them all the time, but I got the book out and made sure they read it to me slow so we could try all the procedures.”
Williams said he made a couple low passes at the Page airport and had people out looking and watching, but the landing gear never looked like it was coming down.
At that point, with plenty of fuel, Williams said he decided to come back to St. George because of the larger airport and better facilities.
“So we came here and pulled around about 30-45 minutes,” Williams said, “and went and let the commercial airplanes out so we don’t slow all that down – and we weren’t in an emergency problem other than the minute we touched down, so it was no big hurry other than at the same time you’re burning off gas.”
With his son in the back of the plane, Williams said, the group tried all the procedures in the book numerous times all the way from Page back to St. George and tried utilizing a chemical way you can crank the landing gear down, but nothing worked.
After trying many different things, Williams said, airport crew members decided to have him land from the north instead of the south.
“So I went up there and they had me do a couple low approaches to check again,” he said. “After one of the low approaches I decided to go through one of the procedures again and that time the landing gear came down.”
Williams said they will find out what went wrong with the landing gear when they take it apart.
“Usually, he said, “you’ll have something burn out or something and then it won’t work, and so that’s why you crank it down, but we couldn’t crank it down so that means that something must be jammed in there which as situations like this occur, it’s usually not a standard thing that happens or they’d have emergency procedures to take care of it, to solve the issue.”
The group all landed safely, to which Williams said: “Any landing is a good landing if you walk away from it.”
Williams said he was grateful for the crews at the St. George Airport who assisted him.
“The guys here were very professional,” Williams said, “and we very much appreciate the Fire Department and the airport people – they took hold right away and started taking things in and dong the proper procedures so I was very pleased with them, very glad we had ‘em.”
- Source: http://www.stgeorgeutah.com
Pilot Bill Williams gives a thumbs up after landing safely following
complications with the plane's landing gear, St. George Municipal
Airport, St. George, Utah, Oct. 20, 2014 |
Photo by John Teas, St.
George News
Pilot Bill Williams examines plane after landing safely after dealing
with landing gear that for a time would not engage on his Beechcraft
Baron, St. George Municipal Airport, St. George, Utah, Oct. 20, 2014
Photo by Kimberly Scott, St. George News
Photo by Kimberly Scott, St. George News
A passenger plane made an emergency
landing at the St. George Municipal Airport on Monday morning after the
pilot found he was unable to deploy the aircraft's landing gear.
Airport Operations Supervisor Brad Kitchen said that at sometime around 9:45 a.m., airport officials were alerted that the twin-engine 1966 Beechcraft Baron carrying four passengers had been diverted to St. George from an airport in Page, Ariz. to attempt an emergency landing because the aircraft's landing gear would not deploy.
The pilot, Bill Williams of Hurricane, had traveled to Page with his wife, his son, and a neighbor. As they made their approach to land, Williams said they noticed something was wrong.
"When the gear comes down, it slows you down normally," Williams said. "That's how I could tell it hadn't come down, is because it usually comes out and drags on the air and makes it slow down."
Williams, who said he has been flying planes for more than 45 years, feared that they would have to attempt a dangerous "belly landing," where the fuselage or body of the plane itself lands directly onto the tarmac without the wheeled landing gear beneath.
"We decided to come back here [because of the] bigger airport and better medical facilities," Williams said.
When Williams arrived in St. George, they were still unable to get the landing gear to function. Williams held in a holding pattern, Kitchen said, while the St. George Fire Department and emergency medical crews stood by near the tarmac, prepared for the worst.
Williams made two aborted landing attempts before, while preparing a third approach, they finally managed to get the gear to drop and the plane landed safely.
"He landed not knowing whether the gear was locked or not," Kitchen said. "Fortunately, it was locked and he landed without incident, as you saw."
The airport, which opened in 2011, has seen two accidents over the past three years it has been in operation. In May 2012, four people were killed during a failed takeoff in which alcohol played a factor. In July of the same year, another fatal accident occurred when a SkyWest employee broke onto airport grounds and stole an aircraft, crashing it in a suspected suicide.
Airport Operations Supervisor Brad Kitchen said that at sometime around 9:45 a.m., airport officials were alerted that the twin-engine 1966 Beechcraft Baron carrying four passengers had been diverted to St. George from an airport in Page, Ariz. to attempt an emergency landing because the aircraft's landing gear would not deploy.
The pilot, Bill Williams of Hurricane, had traveled to Page with his wife, his son, and a neighbor. As they made their approach to land, Williams said they noticed something was wrong.
"When the gear comes down, it slows you down normally," Williams said. "That's how I could tell it hadn't come down, is because it usually comes out and drags on the air and makes it slow down."
Williams, who said he has been flying planes for more than 45 years, feared that they would have to attempt a dangerous "belly landing," where the fuselage or body of the plane itself lands directly onto the tarmac without the wheeled landing gear beneath.
"We decided to come back here [because of the] bigger airport and better medical facilities," Williams said.
When Williams arrived in St. George, they were still unable to get the landing gear to function. Williams held in a holding pattern, Kitchen said, while the St. George Fire Department and emergency medical crews stood by near the tarmac, prepared for the worst.
Williams made two aborted landing attempts before, while preparing a third approach, they finally managed to get the gear to drop and the plane landed safely.
"He landed not knowing whether the gear was locked or not," Kitchen said. "Fortunately, it was locked and he landed without incident, as you saw."
The airport, which opened in 2011, has seen two accidents over the past three years it has been in operation. In May 2012, four people were killed during a failed takeoff in which alcohol played a factor. In July of the same year, another fatal accident occurred when a SkyWest employee broke onto airport grounds and stole an aircraft, crashing it in a suspected suicide.
- Source: http://www.suindependent.com
No comments:
Post a Comment