The private status of Frazier Lake Airpark means the Federal Aviation Administration and Caltrans do not have regulations in place for landscaping of the site’s grass landing strip, where a man died while riding a lawn mower last week.
Volunteers mostly run the non-towered private airpark located at 7901 Frazier Lake Road outside of Hollister, explained Gordon Machado, a commissioner for the Hollister Municipal Airport. On Aug. 6, one of those volunteers and another airport commissioner, Hollister resident Douglas Ralph Jackson, 75, was killed when a plane—which had just landed—struck him while he was mowing the grass landing strip at the airpark.
Frazier Lake Airport Manager Steve Fowles said there was protocol in place to prevent this type of accident, but did not offer what it was when he spoke with the Free Lance the day after the incident.
“Yeah, there is, but I don’t have any comment at this time until the investigation is complete,” he said.
The National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary investigation released this week said the pilot of the plane told the investigator in charge he initially transmitted his intention of landing when he was about eight miles from the airport. The pilot then entered the airport traffic pattern on a right downwind for runway 23 and continued to announce his position approaching the runway, according to the report. The pilot stated that he landed slightly longer than normal and that during the landing roll the airplane struck a lawn mower, the investigative document said.
“Keep in mind this is sort of a private place,” said Michael Schaadt, an aviation safety inspector with the FAA’s San Jose Flight Standards District Office. “We don’t regulate it.”
Uncontrolled airports—or those without air traffic control towers—typically operate by using Universal Communications frequency, in which landing pilots call in their plans “so that other airplanes can hear,” he explained. Pilots aren’t required to have a radio to call in, but most people do just for awareness, he said.
Susana Cruz, the public information officer for Caltrans’ District 5—which includes San Benito, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz counties—knew of responsibilities but not protocols that would apply to landscaping at private airparks like Frazier Lake.
It is the airport’s responsibility to notify pilots if there was some issue at the site, Cruz said. The pilots also have a responsibility to be on the lookout for people.
“But that’s not protocol that we set,” she said.
Machado highlighted the fact that the man killed last week was a volunteer at the airpark and the municipal airport.
“That’s the sad part knowing that it was a man that was volunteering quite often,” the airport commissioner told the Free Lance on Tuesday.
At airparks, mowers are often flagged and equipped with a blinking light when mowing a runway or the area alongside it, Machado explained. A lot of times a large “X” is used to close the runway, he said.
Machado hadn’t heard if this one was flagged, but there was a yellow rotating light on the mower, he said. The runway was evidently not closed, he said.
“It really seems odd that whatever happened, happened,” he said.
