Boston Sunday Globe -- NorthWest section
October 5, 2003

Hanscom Field has a few mishaps

By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent

A fatal crash of a single-engine plane approaching Bedford's Hanscom Field Sept. 27 was the second in five years involving Hanscom. During that period, several potentially dangerous incidents have occurred near the airport, none of which resulted in fatalities, according to Federal Aviation Administration data.

Although this data suggest that the airfield has a fairly clean safety record, given the number of annual takeoffs and landings (218,248 in 2002), the FAA ``does not rank airports in terms of safety,'' said Jim Peters, a regional spokesman for the agency.

The airport's owner-operator, the Massachusetts Port Authority, said safety is always a top priority and that measures are being put in place all the time to try to ensure the safest conditions possible.

This winter, for example, trees and underbrush will be cut back in areas surrounding runways, and runways will be deiced for the first time, Massport spokesman Richard Walsh said.

Peter Enrich of Lexington, chairman of the Hanscom Field Advisory Commission, said the airfield's safety record appears to be good. However, ``cutting down lots of trees and adding pollutants to the runways'' should be questioned, he said.

The Sept. 27 crash will likely be on the agenda for discussion at the commission's next meeting at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 21 in Lexington Town Offices, Enrich said.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating possible causes of the Sept. 27 accident, in which two doctors from New York state were killed. The plane went down in a conservation area off Monument Street in Concord. Public safety officials from Bedford, Westford, Billerica, and Hanscom Air Force Base were on the scene.

The previous fatal accident occured on May 23, 1998, when two people perished when their small plane crashed within the Lincoln boundaries of the Minute Man National Historical Park.

Few incidents, though, have been reported at Hanscom Field since 1998, the FAA said.

The incidents were:

In October 1998, a Goodyear blimp mooring cable snapped, injuring one of the ground crew.

A charter operator preparing to take off in January 2001 reported smoke in the air vents. Crew and passengers were evacuated and the small fire was put out.

In April 2002, a Shuttle America plane crashed into a taxiway fence while being towed to a maintenance hangar.

The only reported airfield incident in recent years that was a result of miscommunication between the control tower and the field occurred in December 2001, when a truck crossed a runway, the FAA said. No planes were on the runway at the time.

At all times, firefighting services at the adjoining Hanscom Air Force Base and State Police are on standby, prepared to handle fires or accidents on the airfield, said Walsh, the Massport spokesman.

Massport has a contract with the Air Force for fire-rescue services. In addition, he said, there is a mutual aid pact involving public safety departments in the surrounding towns, notably, Bedford, Concord, Lexington, and Lincoln.

Because the airfield is always busy with private aircraft, student pilots, and commercial and corporate jets, there is a constant potential for problems, Walsh acknowledged.

Last year, many of the 218,248 takeoffs and landings were ``touch-and-go'' practice operations, Massport has reported.

There were 30,797 corporate jet operations and, in the commercial sector, Shuttle America, operating as US Airways Express, logged 6,375 operations and Boston-Maine Airways 228. Boston-Maine no longer serves the airport.

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
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