Small Plane Makes Emergency Landing in Trancas Field

PHOTO CREDIT, HANS LAETZ
MAYDAY—An airplane that lost its engine over Malibu Park crash-landed on a field west of Trancas Canyon Road last week. The airplane, built in 1950, is one of dozens that have been plying the skies above beaches under federal aviation rules that permit such flights.

PHOTO CREDIT, HANS LAETZ
OK—Any landing you can walk from is a good landing, goes the old aviation saying, and the 22-year-old pilot of the banner-towing airplane that crash-landed in Trancas last week had even better news for his boss: the plane was not wrecked.at lost its engine over Malibu Park crash-landed on a field west of Trancas Canyon Road last week. The airplane, built in 1950, is one of dozens that have been plying the skies above beaches under federal aviation rules that permit such flights.

• Incident Raises Questions about Safety of Some of the Banner Towing Craft Now in Use

BY HANS LAETZ

A 56-year-old airplane towing an aerial advertising banner made an emergency landing in a field near Trancas Canyon Road last week when its engine suffered a major oil leak, coating the windshield with oil. No one was injured when the plane coasted down to one of the few vacant lots suitable for landing along Malibu’s 27 miles of mountainous coastline.

The 1950 Piper PA-18 Cub is owned by a Florida company that has lost at least two aerial advertising planes to crashes in the last two years.

In last Wednesday’s incident, pilot Jaime Escobar told Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies he was towing a beer company banner ad along the coast when he noticed a sudden oil pressure loss, and oil on the windshield. The pilot said he released the banner near Point Dume and coasted west past Trancas Canyon Road, landing the plane on the large plowed field just west of the Trancas gas station at about 3:15 p.m.

“I feathered the engine, and came in at 40 knots (46 miles per hour),” the 22-year-old pilot from Miami told Sheriff’s Aero Bureau deputies, after they arrived at the scene via helicopter. Other than a slightly bent propeller and a film of oil from the frozen, inoperative engine, the plane did not appear seriously damaged, deputies said.

FAA officials arrived on the scene at sunset for a brief inspection. The plane’s wings were removed, and they and the fuselage left Malibu on a truck.

The 50-by-100-foot Coors beer banner, which had been dropped off Paradise Cove, could not be found and likely sank near Little Dume Beach, lifeguards said.

The tail registration number, written in 2-inch-high letters on the plane’s rudder, shows it registered to Van Wagner Aerial Media of Hollywood, Fla. The company’s web site lists offices in New York City. Its president there did not return numerous phone calls and emails from a reporter.

Last summer, another Van Wagner banner-towing Piper PA-18 Cub suffered engine failure over the ocean off the Palos Verdes Peninsula. It crashed into the Pacific Ocean, the pilot swam ashore uninjured, and the plane was recovered.

National Transportation Safety Board engineers found that this plane had a piston disconnect from a push-rod, causing engine failure.

Van Wagner’s most serious accident claimed the life of a pilot in Pembroke Pines, Fla., in late 2004, when an aircraft built in 1957 lost its engine due to what the NTSB called substantial debris in the fuel system. The federal report said the pilot had reported a sputtering engine to a maintenance chief, but flew the plane anyway.The after-crash analysis said accumulated “glob-like material” and rust was found in the fuel pumps and lines of that plane, a former crop-duster.

Last year, a helicopter owned by a different ad firm crashed at Long Beach Airport when its banner got stuck in the tail rotor. A banner-plane owned by a third company crashed in Riverside County in 2005. A review of federal flight safety records by the Malibu Surfside News found 16 serious banner-aircraft crashes across the nation in the past two years. Lesser incidents, such as the Malibu crash-landing last week, are not investigated by the NTSB, and therefore are not included in that total.

The regional spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said aerial banner towing airplanes and helicopters are specifically allowed by federal air regulations, subject to only one broad rule: “The operations cannot occur over densely populated areas, in congested airways or near a busy airport where passenger transport operations are conducted,” Ian Gregor said.

Crowds on beaches across the nation are frequently targeted by banner plane companies. Many Malibu residents say flights over the city are more numerous this summer than in years past. Van Wagner’s web site boasts that its “beach networks maximize coverage by developing networks that incorporate some of the world’s most desirable beach communities, that are otherwise difficult to reach.”

Although Malibu’s coastline is a designated general aviation route, federal officials do not consider Malibu skies to be congested airspace, or the area densely populated. Banner planes are also routinely allowed to fly past Los Angeles International and Santa Monica airports, and over the Rose Bowl, Dodger Stadium and other very densely populated areas

“Those damn things are really loud,” said Malibu City Council member Jeff Jennings, who said he has noticed a sizeable increase in the number of overflights this year. “They are approaching the annoyance threshold on the level of loud motorcycles.”