Pellston airport director commends response in two recent landing incidents
PELLSTON — While delivering his annual report to the Emmet County Board of Commissioners on Monday, Pellston Regional Airport Director Ryan Bachelor highlighted the safety and preparedness training that goes on at the airport.
Among other requirements, the airport conducts Federal Aviation Administration Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) live burn training and crafts an emergency plan.
“Since we’re on the topic of airport emergency plans, I wanted to highlight some very current events that we’ve had at the airport,” Bachelor said. “Some of the investigations are still ongoing, but there are some people that I really want to thank and recognize.”
Over the last two weeks, the airport has seen two incidents involving planes landing with malfunctioning gear. One incident was on May 25 and the second was on June 1.
“One of them landed with his gear up, which means he belly landed with no tires underneath,” Bachelor said. “And the other one was actually last Thursday. This aircraft was a single piston engine prop aircraft, and as he was out flying he started hearing a god awful noise. Long and short, his rear main landing gear broke. So, he was in a huge predicament.”
Nobody was injured in either incident and there was no fire.
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Bachelor said he spoke with the second pilot after the incident and “The pilot said ‘I knew that Pellston has such a great facility and crash fire rescue procedures and personnel on standby. That is why I came.’ He was actually doing approaches over in Harbor Springs.”
“Everything worked out very, very well,” Bachelor added. “Because we do these exercises, our staff was ready and prepared. There was no loss of life and we were ready for anything that happened.”
Bachelor thanked Pellston ARFF Inc. employees, Pellston Fire Department, Carp Lake Fire Department, Alanson-Littlefield Fire Department, Cheboygan Life Support Systems, Emmet County Sheriff’s Department, Emmet County EMS and Northern Michigan Jet Services for their assistance during these incidents.
— Contact Jillian Fellows at jfellows@petoskeynews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Pellston airport director commends response in two recent landing incidents
