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Local pilot lands spotlight
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By Lu Ann Martell, Staff Writer
A local area pilot got a lot of publicity and a little more excitement than he bargained for on Jan. 25, when he had to make an emergency landing in a 1948 model Cessna 170 single engine plane on the 11th hole of the Hermann Park Golf Course in Houston.
Weimar resident and former Columbus High School student, Brendon Ford, was en route to the Robert J. Wells Airport in Columbus, on a flight from Louisiana, that he undertook to help a friend transport his plane.
The aircraft lost power after running out of fuel over Houston approximately 3 and a half hours into the flight, though Ford, who is a seasoned pilot, said that based on the size of the tanks, there should have been enough fuel for a 5-hour flight.
Federal Aviation Administration is meeting with Ford this Wednesday to go over the results of their investigation into the cause of the fuel loss.
Ford says that he wasn’t really afraid, but he did take a deep swallow when the engines started to cut out in the area around I-10 and the 610 loop. He immediately began following procedures for the situation, engaging auxiliary pumps and working with the engine to try to determine the problem. He also began scouting locations below for an emergency landing, and considered the polo fields in that area and the bayou that runs through downtown Houston for a possible water landing.
He found that if he tipped the wings back and forth when the engines cut out, it seemed to get a little leftover fuel into the engines which allowed him to regain power. He began heading southeast towards Hobby Airport, where he had been cleared to land, but the engines cut out again for good over the area of Hermann Park when he was at about 2,000 feet. Several fairways on the golf course seemed pretty open, so it looked like the best place.
Ford has been flying for about 25 years and has had to make an emergency landing before, but not on a plane with a single engine without a secondary engine to assist. Ford says that in training, pilots are put through scenarios of trying to land with reduced engine power and timing a descent.
“It is a little more difficult when the engine has truly failed, and you get to a slow enough airspeed that the prop stops turning, and there is more drag. It makes it a more difficult landing.”
There was an astounded golfer standing on the front of the fairway, though Ford knew that he would be able to clear him on his landing, and he managed to set the plane down without incident.
Ford believes that there shouldn’t be any repercussions from the incident since no one was harmed, and the property owners were more than happy to get the publicity for their course.
Police, fire trucks and ambulances from the city of Houston were on the scene almost immediately, and several news crews followed shortly after. The story got a lot of attention on Houston stations, and was even posted on YouTube on the internet.
A news helicopter was waiting the following morning, because there had been talk of Ford taking off from the fairway to get the plane back to Columbus, but he instead opted to take the wings off and trailer it away.
“The news crews didn’t want to miss any of the action, and I am sure their story would have been even better if I tried to take off and then crashed the plane in the side of an elephant in the (Hermann Park) zoo, but there was no reason to fly out of there, especially since we still weren’t sure of the underlying cause of the problem. It was much safer just to load it up on the trailer.”
Ford noted that he will be happy to get the results from the FAA’s investigation back so that the actual cause of the fuel loss is known. He said that he has had some negative commentary, particularly after the exposure on the internet, from people who think that he was just unaware of how much fuel he had, though he is confident in his knowledge and piloting skills.
“I have been doing this a long time and there are not many pilots who could have handled this situation and made the landing that I did, safely and especially in such a heavily populated area.”
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