Friday, October 16, 2020

Bombardier Challenger 601, N423AK: Incident occurred October 09, 2020 near Scottsdale Airport (KSDL), Maricopa County, Arizona

Federal Aviation Administration / Flight Standards District Office; Scottsdale, Arizona 

Aircraft departed and lavatory door fell off and found in backyard. 

Gemini Air Group


Date: 09-OCT-20
Time: 14:30:00Z
Regis#: N423AK
Aircraft Make: CANADAIR
Aircraft Model: CL600
Event Type: INCIDENT
Highest Injury: UNKNOWN
Aircraft Missing: No
Damage: UNKNOWN
Activity: ON DEMAND
Flight Phase: INITIAL CLIMB (ICL)
Operation: 135
Aircraft Operator: GEMINI AIR GROUP
Flight Number: DBC46
City: SCOTTSDALE
State: ARIZONA


PHOENIX (3TV/CBS5) -- The mystery is over surrounding the piece of metal that broke off an airplane last Friday and came crashing down into a north Phoenix neighborhood.

The 2-pound, square plane part landed in the backyard of Charlie and Jaclyn High's house, which is located near Bell Road and 44th Street.

On Tuesday, the Phoenix couple and their two young boys stopped by the Scottsdale Airport to return the plane part to its rightful owner.

"For the past few days the boys have been carrying it around the backyard, playing with the tabs and talking about their plane part," said Charlie High. "They've been liking it. They love airplanes."

The High family had expressed how scary it was to have something like that fall out of the sky - so close to home and so close to where their kids and dogs play.

Hours after our Arizona's Family story aired Monday night, a pilot from the Gemini Air Group at the Scottsdale Airport reached out to to say the part came from one of their aircraft and they'd like to have it back.

"It's nice to know, nice to know it didn't just come from some a random plane," said Jaclyn High. "Nice to know it was close to our house."

Greg Laabs is general manager of maintenance at the Gemini Air Group. He said the plane belonged to one of their clients and the part that fell off  was a servicing door for the lavatory system. "It's a Challenger 601, which is a little smaller than the airplanes behind us," said Laabs. "Based on where it was found, it was probably on take off."

"It has latches like other doors," said Laabs. We're not sure what caused it to come off. At this point, we know the latches are latched. It could have been a failure. We're investigating that right now."

The Phoenix family was a little surprised by how quickly someone came forward to claim the plane part. They're certainly happy to give it back, but say their boys may have wanted to hang on to the souvenir a bit longer. "We kind of talked up giving it back, so now they think its cool to put it back on the plane," said Jaclyn High.

The FAA has also been notified about what happened.

1 comment:

  1. This aircraft just flew over my house tonight on landing at KRYY. I remember this story. Maybe I need to look in my back yard.

    ReplyDelete