A 75-year-old Hollister man mowing the grass landing strip at Frazier Lake Airpark was killed Thursday morning when struck by a landing plane, according to authorities.
The coroner’s office identified the man Friday as Douglas Ralph Jackson, 75, of Hollister.
“Basically what happened there is a plane came in. It was an older—probably World War II-style—plane,” said Eric Taylor, the operations captain for the San Benito County Sheriff’s Office. “The pilot did not see that there was a 75-year-old man on a riding lawnmower cutting the grass there.”
Responders requested a coroner and two Calstar helicopters shortly after the accident, which occurred at about 10:30 a.m. Thursday.
The plane’s pilot suffered “minor injuries” and the passenger or co-pilot had a head injury and was transported by helicopter to a Bay Area trauma center, Taylor said.
Emergency response vehicles lined the grass landing strip while family members of the deceased man looked toward the accident scene. On the grass, a blue blanket lay next to the crushed lawnmower.
Frazier Lake Airpark is a privately held landing strip located off Frazier Lake Road with a 2,500-foot runway of green grass surrounded by agricultural fields. While field workers drove farm equipment through the adjacent pastures, first responders labored to help the crash victims.
The Federal Aviation Administration remained on scene investigating Thursday afternoon, Taylor said. The National Transportation Safety Board—based out of Washington D.C.— also sent a crew from its Sacramento office to recover the plane, he said. The safety board is responsible for investigating every civil aviation accident in the United States, according to its website.
Ed Ward, a pilot working on his plane in the hangar at the time of the accident, watched as the emergency personnel responded. It was not a bad day for flying, he said.
“It looks fine—kind of overcast,” he said, as he looked toward the plane. “The conditions were not particularly adverse … It was a reasonable day to be flying.”
