Two-hour runway shutdown tribute to airpark safety

Although Fallbrook Community Airpark’s runway was shut down for two hours following a July 21 incident, the rare occurrence of such an event and the incident’s relative insignificance is taken as a sign of safety at the airport.

The incident was only the second of 2007 at Fallbrook Community Airpark, which had 32,586 operations in 2006 and has fewer than five incidents each year. An incident is defined as an event which closes the runway and requires inspection, but neither of the 2007 incidents involved injury, significant damage to the aircraft, or property damage other than the aircraft.

“It’s a very safe airport, and there hasn’t been a very serious injury accident or fatality in years,” said airport manager Bo Donovan.

The procedure following any incident involves interviewing the pilot, documenting the incident and taking photographs, and determining that the incident left no debris or foreign objects on the runway. “There’s an abundance of caution when there’s something that needs to be repaired or taken care of,” Donovan said.

Donovan has an on-site assistant manager at Fallbrook Community Airpark and is also the manager of Ramona Airport. Two days after the Fallbrook incident, Ramona Airport’s runway was shut down for approximately two minutes to remove a dead skunk. Because aircraft at Ramona Airport were in a holding pattern and were asked to remain in that pattern rather than land, the removal of the skunk was termed an incident despite the short interruption time and the lack of involvement by aviation on the ground.

The Fallbrook incident took place at approximately 1:45 p.m. on July 21 and involved a pilot with no other passengers flying a Mooney M20. “In this particular case he took off and his cargo door came open, and in the distraction of that he returned to land and forgot to lower his landing gear,” Donovan said.

One airplane planning to taxi from the hangar was notified of the runway closure while another plane overhead with plans to land was diverted to the Oceanside airport. “We had a plane sitting in the middle of the runway. We couldn’t land anybody,” Donovan said.

The runway and plane were inspected before the airport was re-opened, and the plane was removed from the runway prior to the runway inspection.

Because of the lack of injuries, property damage, or significant aircraft damage, no public investigation will be conducted. “We don’t know why the cargo door came open,” Donovan said. “When you’re distracted to that extent, mistakes can happen.”

The Mooney M20 incurred minor damage. “He’s got some paint work to do and he’s going to have to replace his props,” Donovan said.

Donovan lives in the San Diego Country Estates area of Ramona and was at home when the incident took place that Saturday. He drove to Fallbrook Community Airpark to determine subsequent action. “We take it serious. We want to make sure we get the information we need,” he said.

Saturdays typically have greater air traffic than weekdays at a general aviation airport such as Fallbrook’s, and the airport was back in full service later that afternoon. “All those little things are taken care of, and we get back to running an airport inside of two hours,” Donovan said.

“It’s a well-run safe and compliant airport,” Donovan said. “We don’t have a lot of problems there.”