Airport Noisemaker Injures Employee

A longtime Duluth Airport Authority employee was injured Monday when a noisemaker fired from a shotgun to scare geese from a runway apparently malfunctioned, Duluth police said.

John Lonetto, 41, airfield foreman and 20-year airport authority employee, was in good condition at St. Mary's Medical Center on Monday afternoon.

Brian Ryks, executive director of the airport authority, said Lonetto and a co-worker were using pyrotechnics to scare about 20 Canada geese from the approach end of Runway 21, the cross-wind runway on the northeast section of the Duluth airport.

Ryks said the problem is worse this time of year because the birds are migrating.

The airport has a permit to use noisemaking shells, which are fired from a shotgun to scare the birds from runways, said Duluth Police Lt. Patricia Behning.

The shells make a sound like a gun blast, but the noise occurs at the end of the projectile's trajectory rather than at the beginning, like a regular shotgun shell. Police compared the device to a bottle rocket with a delayed-action fuse.

Ryks said Lonetto's co-worker fired one round, also known as a "bird popper," from a 12-gauge shotgun. The trigger was pulled to fire a second shot, but nothing immediately happened.

"He thought it was a dud, so he opened the shotgun to remove the shell casing. Evidently, the round was still in the shotgun, and it backfired out the back end of the shotgun and grazed Mr. Lonetto in the stomach," Ryks said.

Lonetto and the co-worker, who Ryks declined to name, are both "excellent employees" who have done "an outstanding job of maintaining our airfield over a number of years," Ryks said.

After police complete their investigation, Ryks said the airport authority will evaluate whether it needs to change its methods of removing birds from runways.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press