Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Sonex, N179ES: Incident occurred March 30, 2020 in Huntington Beach, Orange County, California

Federal Aviation Administration / Flight Standards District Office; Long Beach, California 

Aircraft made an emergency landing.

https://registry.faa.gov/N179ES

Date: 30-MAR-20
Time: 23:39:00Z
Regis#: N179ES
Aircraft Make: EXPERIMENTAL
Aircraft Model: SONEX
Event Type: INCIDENT
Highest Injury: NONE
Aircraft Missing: No
Damage: NONE
Activity: PERSONAL
Flight Phase: EN ROUTE (ENR)
Operation: 91
City: HUNTINGTON BEACH
State: CALIFORNIA








With the Huntington State Beach parking lot closed to curb the beach crowds, the small red plane had an empty runway to land on March 30th, without the risk of colliding with the cars that would normally dot the popular spot.

The single-engine plane landed safely in the lot near Newland Street and Pacific Coast Highway.

The pilot, Jon Grazer, said he was flying to Long Beach to a practice area and to check out ships when he noticed his fuel dropping. He had a full tank when he left John Wayne Airport, so he said he knew something was wrong.

He said he had heard of the beach parking closures so thought the lot would be the best place to land.

“Everything worked out,” Grazer, a Newport Beach resident, said, noting there was a strong headwind. “There were some barricades I had to pull through and fortunately cleared those.”

The plane is an 80-horsepower experimental-built airplane, he said.

Orange Coast State Parks Superintendent Kevin Pearsall said “no one was injured, no damage was done and the plane was being removed.

“It was a clean landing,” he said.

Pearsall said the Federal Aviation Administration was quickly on the scene to take a report.

Original article can be found here ➤ https://www.ocregister.com

2 comments:

  1. First Sonex I ever flew in. Glad nobody hurt and no damage.

    ReplyDelete
  2. New meaning to the saying, "timing is everything..."

    ReplyDelete