Airport Opponent Wants Details

The man with a plan to turn Buchanan Field into a housing tract wants a report on the crash-landing of a single-engine GA aircraft last week in which a young girl's leg was severely injured by the plane's propeller.

Contra Costa Supervisor Mark DeSaulnier has been at the center of a controversy now raging in Concord (CA) -- whether to tear down Buchanan and move it, then build houses where the airport now stands.

But DeSaulnier says it's all a matter of routine, denying that he has any ulterior motive in asking for a county report on the forced landing.

Curt Hatch and his teenage son, Robert, were traveling back to Grand Junction (CO) last Tuesday when they lost engine power just after take-off. With little time and fewer choices, Curt decided to set down on I-680... during rush hour.

Miraculously, no one was killed. But his rented Piper Arrow did crash into a minivan. The prop severely cut the leg of an 11-year old Danville girl who was a passenger in the van.

Now, DeSaulnier wants a report on what happened. "We do this whenever there's an incident," the Concord area representative said. "It's a protocol to make sure our agencies in the jurisdiction responded as they're supposed to."

If DeSaulnier has his way, the airport will be moved to what is now a landfill. While farther away from housing, the proposed airport's approaches would be over water. And then there are the winds.

Dianne Cole, executive director of the Friends of Concord Airport Coalition, says one worst-case scenario would have seen Hatch's aircraft crash into a refinery instead of make a forced landing on a busy highway.

"The reality is, this airport is essentially very safe," she said in an interview with the Oakland Tribune.

FMI: www.co.contra-costa.ca.us/depart/pw/airport