A light plane lost power and was forced to make an emergency landing in the middle of the afternoon on the 15th fairway at the Country Club of Columbus (Ga.) while top amateur golfers were practicing for the Southeastern Amateur Open—but the pilot, his passenger and everyone on the ground were all safe and uninjured.
A single-engine aircraft with a reputation for using very little space to take off or land was put to the test on the afternoon of June 16, when a 1970 Maule made an emergency landing on the No. 15 fairway of the golf course at the Country Club of Columbus (Ga.), the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported.
Neither the pilot nor passenger was injured during the 2 p.m. landing at the 18-hole golf course, Lt. J.F. Ross of the Columbus police told the Ledger-Enquirer. And no golfers on the course were injured, even though it was 2 p.m. and some of the top amateur golfers in the country were playing a practice round for the Southeastern Amateur Open, which began June 17 at the Country Club of Columbus.
Michael Fischer, the club’s General Manager, said it took about five minutes to get the plane off the fairway after it landed without incident. “I can’t state it enough,” Fischer told the Ledger-Enquirer. “Nobody got hurt. That is what it all boils down to.”
Ronald H. Wolf, one of the aircraft’s two owners, told the Ledger-Enquirer that the pilot, Dean A. King, was trying to make it to the Columbus Airport for maintenance when the plane lost some power. “We don’t know yet what the problem was,” Wolf said. “He didn’t lose total power. He lost partial power, not enough to maintain.”
The plane, which is based outside of Columbus, had plenty of fuel, Wolf added. And while it was unfortunate that the plane had to make the landing, “There’s no damage to the airplane and no damage to anybody,” he noted. “It’s all good.”
The plane landed on the 15th fairway, a long par 4, going uphill toward the tee box, the Ledger-Enquirer reported. Columbus police sealed off the aircraft with yellow tape until Federal Aviation Administration officials arrived to investigate the landing. The aircraft seats four and has a 235-horsepower Franklin engine, the Ledger-Enquirer reported, and is made partially of fabric and partially of metal.
“Typically, we don’t do [landings on] golf courses, but we do a lot of hay fields,” Wolf told the Ledger-Enquirer.
Fischer, who has been at the Country Club of Columbus for about eight months, told the Ledger-Enquirer that the aircraft landing is “definitely the most unique thing” to happen to him as a club manager.
“I have seen helicopters land on golf courses, but that was planned at a club I worked at, for the bride and groom [to leave] after their wedding ceremony, ” Fischer said.
Photos of the plane and the tire marks that the landing made on the course, and a video interview of Fischer, can be viewed at http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2015/06/16/3771528/plane-makes-emergency-landing.html
The incident prompted this posting on the Southeastern Amateur Open’s website: “Course is playing too easy, you could land a plane on those fairways…”
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