Light aircraft reported down at Leeds East (Church Fenton)
 

A local online news source has reported that a light aircraft has been involved in an incident at Leeds East (former RAF Church Fenton).

American registered Cessna 210 ended up on its back just off the runway. Arrived earlier so presumably a take off accident, hopefully injuries less serious than article suggests.

https://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/N761JU

The aircraft appears to have run off the side of the runway...


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5b3b5b329.jpeg

If it did run off the side the picture says a lot.

All vehicles on the hard and obvious flooding on the grass.

Soft surface could account for it ….

If I have got the orientation of the previous photo correct, we used to use the grass area to the north of the main runway(and to the west of 16/34) for landing light aircraft. I don't recall the grass strip being closed very often. However, I never saw water puddles like that.

How many police in attendance????

I count 12 vehicles there. A couple of years back a friend overran the end of a grass runway and inverted his aircraft, right in front of us. (We were running up our aircraft at the time) ,He was unhurt.and no smoke or fire, but was stuck. My wife called for a fire engine to help us get him out. (He asked for as little fuss as possible) Over the next 45 minutes 13 emergency vehicles turned up, including a rescue helicopter. Naturally, photographers pitched up too !

Only one vehicle got seriously stuck, but trying to stop the police from setting up an 'exclusion zone' around the area was a challenge. Hard to avoid them making a big event out of it - they naturally presume the worst. So maybe this order of response is to be expected.

Our friend was lucky, being uninjured. I hope the folks in this accident recover OK.

Sounds a bit like the response to a crash of a two seater aircraft into a graveyard. Over a hundred bodies were found.

I'm not shore about Church Fenton but many airfields have a generic emergency response which assumes the largest aircraft which would be using the airfield has had an accident, working on the basis an over the top response is better than a minimal one.

Twenty odd years ago I witnessed an accident involving a Stearman at Old Buckingham. I can’t remember the numbers but I was bemused by the amount of emergency vehicles that turned up, including an Incident Control Van, for a minor accident to a light two seat aircraft. I assume a generic response is made to an aircraft accident.

I think you are correct.


The hardest part of 'our' incident was persuading the late arriving police inspector that his advisor, based 150 miles away, was not helping at all. Clearly that person was thinking 'airliner accident', wanting to have an exclusion zone – for fuel leakage and fire risk – and nominate an ‘on scene commander’.

Persuading him that any residual fuel in the aircraft had long since leaked away into the soft soil and that an ‘exclusion zone’ which had both our aircraft and the nearby hangar within it wasn’t much use wasn't easy. All the residual risks – fuel in aircraft and in cans ready for refuelling – were INSIDE the supposed zone. Not helpful or useful. Our friendly policeman also repositioned one of the fire engines onto the soft patch we‘d pointed out earlier. So that added the fun of winching a hefty fire engine out, doing much more damage than the aircraft had ! Still, no doubt he meant well, just didn’t listen. Maybe I needed a fancy hat or jacket…

More or less it seems - we had a glider incident with a broken ankle some years ago. We got three firetrucks but we also got the ambulance we had requested.

Looks like yet another example of how this country has lost all sense of proportion and how common sense has been 'bred out' of people. Even if there is a standard 'worst case' response, there should be no reason why the majority of those emergency vehicles were not stood down once the reality of the situation was clear. I'm sure there were other things they could have doing elsewhere.

I understand that some fire crews are paid for the time they spend on scene when called out......

Rans6......

Twenty odd years ago I witnessed an accident involving a Stearman at Old Buckingham. I can’t remember the numbers but I was bemused by the amount of emergency vehicles that turned up, including an Incident Control Van
Maybe they were all told it was a Boeing that crashed?;)

I was a volunteer firefighter for 28 years. It looks only a little odd when too many response vehicles attend, it looks terrible when too few do! Many times I would take a truck to the scene by myself, and really be hoping for prompt arrival of the next vehicle. And, even if there is nothing to do for most of the responders at a "simple" call, there are training opportunities, and the opportunity for various first responders to renew a sense of teamwork. When I was crashed by my student, I don't know how many vehicles responded, but I sure was happy to see them!

Many many moons ago when I was working for NZNAC at NZWN we had a spate of bomb scares. After a lot of investigation and the next one came in from an external line in the crash fire section. Turns out that the caller was a bit short that week so he wanted call out pay!

Said offender was quietly fired and he went to work for a rural fire station in Hastings, NZ. There then occurred a spate of fires. The investigations quickly centered on the ex CAA fireman who confessed fairly quickly. Turned out that he was bored and wanted some fires to fight

Must be a NE thing. A Sky Diver has died oop nawth yesterday lunchtime, the details are a bit short at the present, at least on the BBC news pages, but this is what the ambulance service have said

"North East Ambulance Service said it dispatched four hazardous area response teams , a clinical team leader, a specialist paramedic, two ambulances and requested support from the air ambulance."

That is at least 8 drivers, 1 pilot plus however many extras they have in each of their assets.

Unbelievable.

Rans6.............

He seems to have landed in an industrial estate so I suppose it's entirely possible that hazardous substances could have been disturbed. Crashed through an asbestos roof for example.