[TowerTalk] FAA & Private Airstrips

[K8RI]

On 12/30/2011 2:20 AM, Gene Fuller wrote:
> We have some commercial towers in the area of the final approach to one of
> the runways here in Rochester. As I heard one pilot say "run into one of
> those guys  on a foggy night and you could ruin the whole trip".
> Gene / W2LU

We landed at Tampa Bay Exec quite a few years back.  The fog was so 
thick we were almost to the runway before we could see it.
I found out later that two days earlier a guy tried to land at the 
airport with the morning fog. He hit the power lines about a mile or two 
to the West. The only thing left was the engine and it looked like a 
piece of modeling clay that some one had rolled into a ball. He was 
apparently flying *very * low and saw the first transmission line as he 
went under it. He pulled up and right into the second one. It didn't 
even damage the power line.
I doubt I'd have pulled up, but they'd have had to send me to the ER to 
remove the seat cushion.  OTOH the only way I'd have gotten that low in 
those conditions would be after running out of gas and I carried enough 
to make home, non stop.

If there had been a house with a TV antenna he would have missed the 
antenna and hit the house. He had to have been flying that low.

73

Roger (K8RI)