An airplane overran the runway of Courtenay Airpark this week.
According to Airpark President Ray Henault, the incident happened on Monday at around 10:30 a.m., where a student pilot was flying the Cessna 172 aircraft from Sealand Flight, doing practice touch and goes at the airpark approved by his instructor.
Henault says on the pilot’s fourth or fifth approach, he decided to abort his landing.
“He ended up landing a little bit long, and when he tried to stop before the end of the runway, which was wet yesterday, the aircraft didn’t stop in time and he ended up going through the fence at the Marina end of the airpark,” said Henault.
“When it hit the fence, the aircraft stopped very quickly, and it ended up on the airpark pathway. But it didn’t damage the aircraft all that badly, it certainly bent the prop when it dug into the earth past the fence. We don’t know if there was other damage to the aircraft, but there was nothing obvious.”
After the landing, RCMP and the Courtenay Fire department arrived at the scene, with members of the airpark helping to secure the site, avoiding any aircraft take off while dealing with the incident.
Henault says while the pilot was shaken by this incident, no one was injured as no one else was at the pathway at the time of the incident.
For the aircraft, it took them an hour and a half to move it away.
“By about 11:15 or 11:20, we were able to push it back off the parkway onto the hard surface on the runway and ramp area and was pushed back to the Sealand Flight parking area at the airpark by members of the airpark, the fire department, and Sealand Flight themselves,” said Henault.
“The runway was opened again by noon yesterday and has been ever since.”
He says for the fence, it has a 40- or 50-foot span that needs to be replaced, which will be done by Tower Fence.
“We’ve contacted Transport Canada, the Transportation Safety Board, everyone that needs to be involved to do any follow-up investigations.”
