Witness describes aircraft hitting the ground near Hollister
airport
A witness to Tuesday morning’s plane crash near the Hollister
Municipal Airport said the aircraft appeared to have been about 50
feet off the ground upon takeoff when she saw its wings teetering
from side to side before it struck the ground.
Witness describes aircraft hitting the ground near Hollister airport
A witness to Tuesday morning’s plane crash near the Hollister Municipal Airport said the aircraft appeared to have been about 50 feet off the ground upon takeoff when she saw its wings teetering from side to side before it struck the ground.
The crash occurred shortly before 7 a.m. in a field northwest of the airport, and the pilot escaped with minor injuries, according to authorities. The twin-engine Comanche airplane had been taking off for Hawaii, and the 300 gallons of fuel in the aircraft left local officials with an environmental cleanup at the site, said Airport Manager Mike Chambless.
Sheriff’s office spokesman Lt. Roy Iler noted how the pilot, Gary Mitchell, told authorities that his engines failed after taking off.
Amy Bordi, who works at Don Chapin Co.’s Quarry Plant 25 on a hill overlooking the airport runways, described how she had been getting out of her car at the time and heard a plane coming after it had taken off.
“So I turned around and looked and saw the plane kind of trying to get up to air speed,” she said. “He was off the ground and about that time he was kind of heading this way. So I thought about that time, maybe I should get out of the way.”
Bordi estimated the airplane was about 50 feet off the ground when she noticed it having trouble. She works from a trailer northwest of the airport.
“At that time, I was getting ready to move out of the area, and he crashed, and a bunch of dirt came up. And I came and I called 911.”
She noted how he walked away from the scene.
“You don’t get to see that very often, do you?”
The pilot sustained minor injuries with a head laceration and scratches, Iler said.
Law enforcement and firefighters arrived on scene. There was no fire, but crews sprayed the aircraft “because of the fuel there when they went to disconnect the electricals,” Chambless said.
The Federal Aviation Administration is overseeing the investigation, while an FAA spokesman could not be reached for comment before Pinnacle press time.
Iler confirmed his identity, though information on his residence was not immediately available. Chambless, the airport manager, also confirmed the man is a tenant at the Hollister airport.
Chambless had been dealing with the cleanup in the aftermath and noted how the county’s environmental health department and the Hollister Fire Department had been on the scene all day doing that work. Crews must remove the 300 gallons of fuel that had been in the plane, which still was leaking as of Tuesday afternoon, he said.
“The FAA is doing the investigation,” he said. “Once they release his information, I can talk about it more.”
Operations at the local airport were not affected by the crash, Chambless said.
Chambless said the incident shows Hollister has a “good example of an airport plan” because there are not houses “up against the airport.”
“You can’t say that about many places,” he said. “It cuts the effects of this to an absolute minimum.”
