Sunday, November 14, 2021

Ryan Navion B, N70GH: Incident occurred November 14, 2021 at Bob Maxwell Memorial Airfield (KOKB), Oceanside, San Diego County, California

Federal Aviation Administration / Flight Standards District Office; San Diego, California

Aircraft landed gear up.


Date: 14-NOV-21
Time: 19:53:00Z
Regis#: N70GH
Aircraft Make: RYAN
Aircraft Model: NAVION B
Event Type: INCIDENT
Highest Injury: NONE
Aircraft Missing: No
Damage: MINOR
Activity: PERSONAL
Flight Phase: LANDING (LDG)
Operation: 91
City: OCEANSIDE
State: CALIFORNIA

OCEANSIDE, California —  A man and a woman were unhurt Sunday after their single-engine plane skidded down the Oceanside Airport runway without landing gear, police said.

The plane left the airport in the 400 block of Airport Road at around noon Sunday headed to Catalina, the pilot told authorities, said Sgt. Tom Wayer of the Oceanside Police Department.

Before taking off, the pilot checked the fuel gauge, which showed the tank to be full, but while over the ocean, the gauge indicated there was no fuel, the sergeant said. So he headed back to the airport for an emergency landing.

The pilot said there was either a landing gear malfunction or he forgot to lower the landing gear and the plane landed on the runway on its belly, Wayer said. The plane skidded and ended up partially off the end of the runway.

Oceanside Fire Department personnel and paramedics arrived at the scene, but the plane landed intact and the pilot and his friend were not injured, Wayer said.

https://www.10news.com

Cirrus SR22, N633CD: Accident occurred November 14, 2021 at Mountain Air Airport (2NC0), Burnsville, Yancey County, North Carolina

This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed. 

The National Transportation Safety Board did not travel to the scene of this accident. 

Additional Participating Entity: 
Federal Aviation Administration / Flight Standards District Office; Charlotte, North Carolina

Polaris Fire Protection Inc


Location: Burnsville, North Carolina
Accident Number: ERA22LA059
Date and Time: November 14, 2021, 17:52 UTC 
Registration: N633CD
Aircraft: CIRRUS DESIGN CORP SR22 
Injuries: 1 Minor
Flight Conducted Under: Part 91: General aviation - Personal

Aircraft and Owner/Operator Information

Aircraft Make: CIRRUS DESIGN CORP
Registration: N633CD
Model/Series: SR22 NO SERIES 
Aircraft Category: Airplane
Amateur Built:
Operator: On file
Operating Certificate(s) Held: None
Operator Designator Code:

Meteorological Information and Flight Plan

Conditions at Accident Site: VMC 
Condition of Light: Day
Observation Facility, Elevation: KAVL,2170 ft msl
Observation Time: 12:54 Local
Distance from Accident Site: 28 Nautical Miles 
Temperature/Dew Point: 11°C /-2°C
Lowest Cloud Condition: Clear
Wind Speed/Gusts, Direction: 5 knots / , 230°
Lowest Ceiling: None 
Visibility: 10 miles
Altimeter Setting: 29.93 inches Hg
Type of Flight Plan Filed: IFR
Departure Point: Fernandina Beach, FL (FHB)
Destination: Burnsville, NC

Wreckage and Impact Information

Crew Injuries: 1 Minor 
Aircraft Damage: Substantial
Passenger Injuries:
Aircraft Fire: None
Ground Injuries: 
Aircraft Explosion: None
Total Injuries: 1 Minor
Latitude, Longitude: 35.868724,-82.341794 (est)





A small airplane crashed at a country club in Western North Carolina on Sunday, November 14, officials said.

The pilot, who was the only person on board, crashed near the runway while trying to land the Cirrus SR22 at Mountain Air Country Club in Burnsville around 12:52 p.m., according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

The pilot was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Jeff Howell, Yancey County Emergency Management coordinator, told McClatchy News.

A bathroom on the golf course nearby caught fire following the crash, but crews got the blaze under control quickly, Howell said. No one else was injured as a result of the crash.

Howell said he does not know what caused the plane to crash. The Federal Aviation Administration said it’s investigating the crash along with the National Transportation Safety Board.


After death of owner in balloon crash, quirky Post Mills Airport (2B9) has uncertain horizon




Since its founding in 1945, Post Mills Airport has changed hands only a few times, most recently in 1988, when Brian Boland acquired it.

And since its founding, the small grass airstrip has been privately held.

Boland’s death in a July 15 hot air balloon accident might change that pattern. In his will, Boland left the 50-acre parcel to the town of Thetford with the proviso that it remain a working airport.

“He didn’t want it to go to someone who was going to sell it off,” Tina Foster, Boland’s life partner, said earlier this month.

He also didn’t want to burden her or the town, she said. His will grants Foster a life tenancy in the home they shared at the airport, so long as she pays the taxes and keeps the place up.

Since the 72-year-old Boland’s death, neighbors and members of the aviation community have stepped in to help run the airport, Foster said.

During his years in Thetford, Boland exhibited a knack for bringing the community together, ranging from keeping the airport open for recreation to inviting people to help build a massive sculpture of a dinosaur out of scrap wood. Keeping the Post Mills Airport up and running seems likely to remain a community activity.

“I think he liked having people come by to see whatever wonderful stuff was going on,” Foster said.

The grass airstrip, which sits just west of Lake Fairlee off Route 244, is flanked on one side by Boland’s home and collections and on the other by tie-downs for aircraft and a small hut. Tucked behind a line of trees are hangars for planes.

Foster met with the Thetford Selectboard on Oct. 18. The meeting minutes reflect the early stage of the conversation about the airport’s future. Board members asked questions for which there are no answers. Before Boland’s will can move through probate court, Foster has to take an inventory of his thousands of possessions, and has already been granted an extension by the court.

Foster told the board that the airport’s community wondered whether the town could take ownership of the airport and lease it back to a company set up to run, and most likely own, the airport’s operations. That way the town could avoid liability and still receive some tax money from the airport, the main body of which is valued at $775,000 on the Thetford grand list.

Selectboard Chairwoman Sharon Harkay directed questions to Town Manager Bryan Gazda, who said Wednesday that he and the town’s attorney had met with Foster and her lawyer but no decisions have been made.

“Really we’re still in the discovery phase,” said Gazda, who noted that the town’s attorney was preparing a memo for the Selectboard on the matter.

As a business, the airport has always been marginal.

“I saw this here field, and I said to myself that this is the spot for a farmer airport,” Len Hoyt, who started the airport, told The New Yorker in 1985. It’s still the kind of place where flying is cultivated, not mined.

The aviation business experienced a boom after World War II, and Hoyt thought he’d get a share of the riches. It didn’t work out that way, “but it was a lot of fun,” he said.

The New Yorker story, written by Burton Bernstein, an avid pilot (and Leonard Bernstein’s brother), and illustrated by Brookfield, Vt., cartoonist Ed Koren, describes a place that’s well-loved by the aviation community and that has been characterized by a kind of raffish charm.

“We had what we called a dollhouse here at first, with two chairs, a stove and a 50-gallon drum of gasoline,” Hoyt said.

He sold the place in the mid-1970s to a man who “went broke,” Hoyt said. That man sold it to Hanover residents Babs and David Nutt.

The Nutts took to flying later in life, after their six kids were grown. They kept the airport going by diversifying. Babs taught people how to fly airplanes and gliders and also taught aerobatics. They took people up on sightseeing flights, did some forestry patrols for the state to look for fires and defoliation, leased space to aviation businesses, and towed banners.

Running a small Vermont airport was “no hobby,” David Nutt, who’d been a researcher at Dartmouth College, told The New Yorker.

“Up here we have to drum up business wherever we can find it,” he added.

Babs Nutt was a distinguished flyer, though. She still holds an altitude record for female glider pilots, soaring higher than 35,000 feet over Colorado in 1975.

When Boland bought the airport, he added ballooning to its repertoire. He made his own balloons and baskets and held an annual Experimental Balloon and Airship Festival, activities Foster said will continue.

“Ballooning is really kind of a magical activity,” Foster said, one that draws people in. “It’s amazing to me how many people have said to me, ‘I miss the balloons.’ ”

Foster met Boland when he landed a balloon at her neighbor’s house on Academy Road.

Boland also was one of the busiest magpies in the Upper Valley, collecting all kinds of things, most of them mechanical, from antique cars to sewing machines. With help from friends and community members, he built a huge, multi-story hall to house his Experimental Balloon and Airship Museum and his Museum of Rusty Dusty Stuff. The museums, the balloons, the wooden Vermontasaurus and the general openness of the place has made the airport a kind of roadside attraction.

The glory of it is still the grass airstrip. On a Friday morning earlier this month, a row of gliders sat enclosed in their trailers, frost still on the grass in their shadows. The tow plane used to haul them into the air made a brief warmup flight, rumbling into the air and turning a circle around the village before landing again.

Skip Jenkyn, of Hanover, opened the trailer for his glider and started to assemble it. He’s been using the airport since 1984. “Babs Nutt taught me to fly,” he said.

Like everyone who lifts off from Post Mills, he wants to see it stay open.

“It’s hallowed ground, basically,” he said. Soaring is flying for flying’s sake, and the Post Mills Soaring Club, of which he is one of more than 30 members, share a bond and a sense of community.

As one of only a few private airports in Vermont and New Hampshire, Post Mills is treasured both as a place for aviation and a sort of time capsule. Most of the dozen or so airplanes at the airport — Pipers, Aeroncas, Taylorcrafts — date to the decade just after World War II, according to Don Graber, an airplane and glider pilot.

For the price of a snowmobile and a trailer, a person can own a plane, he said.

Pilot Tim Chow, of Norwich, who was at the field November 5, said he hopes to see the airport stay as it is.

“Brian left a great legacy, and it would be nice if we could maintain it,” said Chow, who’s been flying out of the airport for 15 years.

That’s all Foster is after, too. She plans to keep the dialog going among pilots, town residents and officials.

“It’s really important to me to have good conversations with the community and the Selectboard and figure out what’s the best way forward and what’s the best way to honor his wishes,” she said.

Aviat A-1C-200 Husky, N199B: Accident occurred October 02, 2021 in Riverhead, Suffolk County, New York

This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed.

The National Transportation Safety Board did not travel to the scene of this accident.

Additional Participating Entity:
Federal Aviation Administration / Flight Standards District Office; New York

Bennett Aviation LLC


Location: Riverhead, New York
Accident Number: ERA22LA038
Date and Time: October 2, 2021, 10:00 Local 
Registration: N199B
Aircraft: Aviat A-1C 200 
Injuries: 1 None
Flight Conducted Under: Part 91: General aviation - Personal

Aircraft and Owner/Operator Information

Aircraft Make: Aviat 
Registration: N199B
Model/Series: A-1C 200 
Aircraft Category: Airplane
Amateur Built:
Operator: 
Operating Certificate(s) Held: None
Operator Designator Code:

Meteorological Information and Flight Plan

Conditions at Accident Site: VMC
Condition of Light: Day
Observation Facility, Elevation: HWV 
Observation Time: 09:56 Local
Distance from Accident Site: 12.5 Nautical Miles
Temperature/Dew Point: 0°C /0°C
Lowest Cloud Condition: 
Wind Speed/Gusts, Direction: / ,
Lowest Ceiling: 
Visibility:
Altimeter Setting: 
Type of Flight Plan Filed: None
Departure Point: West Hampton, NY (FOK)
Destination: Riverhead, NY

Wreckage and Impact Information

Crew Injuries: 1 None 
Aircraft Damage: Substantial
Passenger Injuries: 
Aircraft Fire: None
Ground Injuries: 
Aircraft Explosion: None
Total Injuries: 1 None 
Latitude, Longitude: 40.958372,-72.717385 (est)