In Roanoke (Texas) over the weekend, a single-engine plane clipped a passing SUV while making a landing and the incident was caught on video by the wife of the pilot who was on the ground filming her husband doing a solo. Luckily, no one was seriously injured in the incident but both the aircraft and the SUV suffered extensive damage plus the student pilot decided to quit flying just four weeks before he would have received his private pilot’s license.
Apparently, the airport does not own the road in front of the runway and there is a stop sign there – or rather the word “STOP” is written on the road:
A local news station then aired this segment with an interview with the couple in the SUV, the pilot and his wife and the airport owners:
On You Tube, several commenters posted comments about displaced threshold and the fence being at the end of the runway. In other words, perhaps the pilot came in too low.
However, we want to ask readers what you think after watching the video: Irrespective of whether it’s a smart idea to have a road at the end of an active runway, was the pilot at fault in any way?