Plane has rough landing in College Park, no injuries

Friday, Nov. 3, 2006

by Dennis Carter

Staff Writer

A single-engine airplane skidded across the runway of the College Park Airport on Friday morning after the aircraft’s landing gear failed during the landing.

Just after 7 a.m., the plane, piloted by an experienced pilot who regularly uses the small airport in east College Park, approached the runway for a routine landing, said airport manager Lee Schiek. The landing gear was lowered, but the equipment collapsed when the plane touched down on the runway, Schiek said, adding the incident was the aviation equivalent to ‘‘a fender bender.”

‘‘It won’t be a cheap repair, but as far as being a catastrophic event, it was not,” he said. ‘‘We just had to listen to the ungodly sound of sheet metal scraping the ground.”

Schiek said the man, who flies into the airport once a week, was not injured, and officials from the Federal Aviation Administration interviewed the pilot and witnesses shortly after the incident.

No fluids, including gasoline, spilt from the aircraft, Schiek said, adding that this was the first irregular landing in College Park since 2002.