2 Escape Injury When Small Plane Flips Over at John Wayne Airport
Two people inside a small, fixed-wing airplane escaped injury when it flipped over at John Wayne Airport on Saturday afternoon, officials said.
The Cessna 172, which overturned at around 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 7, was “blown over” while taxiing behind United Airlines Flight 2611, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement on Sunday.
Jason Ryu, the pilot of the overturned plane, wrote in an incident report that the small aircraft was struck by “jet blast” from a Boeing jet that had “increased engine power to enter the runway.”
The resulting blast “moved the aircraft and I was unable to maintain control of its movement,” Ryu said in the report, submitted Sunday to the Orange County Flight Center, which owns the Cessna. “The aircraft pitched forward and overturned completely.”
Kunal Gawli, a flight student who was in the overturned aircraft with Ryu, wrote that the pilot couldn’t maintain enough distance from the Boeing jet because of ongoing construction near Dove Street.
“The jet blast from that Boeing jet lifted the tail of N57BM and the aircraft rolled forward and it flipped entirely,” Gawli said, referring to the registration number of the Cessna.
Neither a John Wayne Airport spokesperson nor the FAA referred to jet blast in their brief statements, but both said an investigation into what happened is underway.
“There were no injuries reported,” John Wayne Airport spokesperson AnnaSophia Servin said, adding, “There was no impact to operations.”
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