Monday, Nov. 21, 2005 | 8:25 a.m.
Number of accidents and incidents at comparable general aviation airports since January 2000:
* North Las Vegas -- 36
* Chandler (Ariz.) Municipal -- 20
* Montgomery Field, San Diego -- 16
* Teterboro (N.J.) -- 9
* Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) Executive -- 9
* DeKalb-Peachtree, Atlanta -- 7
* David Wayne Hooks, Houston -- 6
* Morristown (N.J.) Municipal -- 3
* Williams-Gateway, Mesa (Ariz.) -- 3
Note: Some of the incidents may have occurred near but outside the airport boundaries as aircraft departed or approached the airports.
Source: National Transportation Safety Board data
WASHINGTON -- The North Las Vegas Airport has reported 36 accidents and lesser "incidents" in the last five years, a rate higher than other general aviation airports of comparable size, according to a Sun analysis of National Transportation Safety Board reports.
The total includes mostly minor mishaps that resulted in injuries and crunched planes, but also three fatal crashes at the airport -- and two fatal crashes near it -- that killed 12 people.
The NTSB reports dating to January 2000 reveal a wide variety of crashes and miscues: a taxiing plane driving into a ditch, the landing-gear collapse of an experimental "homebuilt" single-engine plane, and a helicopter "colliding with the ground."
Some veteran pilots lament the 64-year-old airport's long metamorphosis from an obscure airfield to a busy hub swarming with small commercial airlines, tour operators, flight schools -- and nearly 218,000 takeoffs and landings a year. Such growth means more accidents, they say.
"It's too big, it's too crowded and there are too many airplanes," said Dan Markoff, a lawyer and Beech Bonanza pilot who has been flying at the airport since 1964.
There now are 675 planes based at North Las Vegas, and the airport has a high number of visiting planes compared to many general aviation airports, Clark County aviation officials said.
"It was never intended to be this big," Markoff said. "It's the second busiest airport in the state after McCarran -- and that is saying something for that little place."
It is difficult to compare airports because they vary widely in size, runways, weather, surrounding topography and take-off and landing totals, federal aviation officials say. The NTSB does not calculate a national average for accidents and incidents.
"Every airport is so unique," said Donn Walker, the Federal Aviation Administration's Western-Pacific regional spokesman. "They are like fingerprints. No airport is like any other."
But for some means of comparison, the Sun examined NTSB reports dating to January 2000 for eight other general aviation airports with roughly the same number of take-offs and landings as North Las Vegas. Four of the airports had more traffic, four had less.
The result: North Las Vegas had more accidents and incidents than the eight others, with 36. The next closest was Chandler Municipal Airport in Arizona, a busier airport, with 20 incidents and accidents.
That does not surprise some North Las Vegas Airport neighbors. Activist Linda West Myers and others have been lobbying the Legislature to reduce the number of flights at the airport, at least after 10 p.m., she said. Neighbors fret about rookie student pilots and the sheer volume of Grand Canyon tour operators, she said.
Some residents living near the airport say the county has listened to their concerns about airport growth but never responded, said Paul Von Rueden, former president of the Northwest Area Residents Association.
"A lot of those planes fly low right over your house," he said. "You just wonder which one of them is going to come through your roof."
Clark County Department of Aviation officials, who manage the airport, noted that the 36 accidents and incidents were a tiny fraction of the nearly 218,000 takeoffs and landings last year. The episodes included mostly pilot or mechanical mishaps that were beyond the control of airport officials, they added.
The 911-acre airport also is bigger than Chicago's Midway and New York's LaGuardia, North Las Vegas Airport general aviation manager Doug McNeeley said. North Las Vegas has a more diverse mix of users than most general aviation airports, with student pilots, charter planes, recreational fliers, experimental plane builders, even antique plane pilots, McNeeley said.
"It's really a different kind of flying that we do here," he said.
McNeeley stressed that the airport in the last few years has implemented a "runway safety action plan" that included wider "hold" lines on taxiways, as well as additional flashing yellow lights and directional signs on taxiways.
"We're very proactive," McNeeley said. "We're always in tune with what is going on and what can be done to make it safer."
Of the 36 accidents and incidents, six involved students. In 10 cases, the mishaps occurred outside the airport fences but near the airport as aircraft struggled to take off or get back to the airport to land.
In March 2003, for example, an incoming single-engine plane ran out of fuel and "collided with terrain," according to the NTSB report. It struck a fence and finally crashed into a ditch in front of the Rancho Mesa apartments.
Airport experts note that public general aviation airports are susceptible to mishaps because of a high number of pilots who have not spent much time in the cockpit.
Many general aviation airports have higher accident rates than even the nation's busiest commercial airports. North Las Vegas' 36 incidents compare to seven in the last five years at or near McCarran International Airport.
The 36 incidents and accidents at North Las Vegas Airport include everything from helicopter crashes to noninjury accidents in which small planes slipped off the runway. Here are some examples:
* Dec. 25, 2003: The airport's deadliest accident in recent years fell on a Christmas Day when a six-seat, single-engine Beechcraft A-36 Bonanza crashed shortly after takeoff, killing two children, their parents and two grandparents. A final cause still has not been released by the National Transportation Safety Board.
* May 22, 2004: An American Blimp Corporation airship crashed when a gust of wind hit the blimp upon takeoff. Despite the efforts of six people tugging on two nose ropes, the blimp drifted and its landing gear clipped an airport fence. The craft settled atop a one-story building. No one was injured.
* May 6, 2005: A 49-year-old pilot suffered a heart attack and his two friends, who were not pilots, took control of the Gulfstream turbo-prop and crash-landed at the airport. The pilot died later at University Medical Center.
"You always look at the experience of the people using the airport," said Victor Hewes, a retired airport safety consultant. "Generally speaking, your general aviation pilots aren't as experienced as your commercial line pilots."
North Las Vegas Mayor Michael Montandon said he was surprised that there have been so many mishaps at the airport. The city's emergency crews notify him if they respond to major accidents there -- and there have only been a few of those in recent years, he said.
"Every one that I can recall was pilot error," he said.
The airport is expertly managed, said several people who work there every day.
"It's as safe as any in the country," said John Giles, manager of the West Air Aviation flight school.
But longtime pilot Markoff said the county has not managed the airport well, from infrastructure decisions to the number of commercial outfits allowed to operate there.
"Anyone who wants to set up an airline or make runs to the (Grand) Canyon gets to do it," Markoff said. "It just seems like things are too loose out there."
Another veteran North Las Vegas pilot, Jess Meyers, said his only complaint was that development over the years has crept too close to the airport borders.
"Airports and graveyards are usually out in the country," said Meyers, who owns the experimental aircraft business Belted Air Power. "But now everything has built up around it. When you fly in, you fly over houses."
But he has no complaints about airport safety, he said.
"There is nothing per-se dangerous about the airport," he said. "The same can be said of an airplane. It's just how it's used."
Benjamin Grove can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or grove@ lasvegassun.com.
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