Asheville News

Ashvegas commenter: Close call between planes around Asheville airport

Jason Sandford September 13, 2010

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

Here’s the email sent Sunday from loyal reader Eric:

Hey, I was standing outside my house this morning showing my son a (what looked to be) a Leer Jet flying south fairly low over the airport when a (what looked to be) a Cesna 152 flying the same direction but at a different angle came into it’s path. The Leer jet swerved first to the right and in a delayed response the old Cesna type plane veered to the right. A little too close for comfort. It all went down at about 10am and it appeared that both aircraft were just doing low fly overs and not landing or taking off. What can you dig up on this..

P.S. That airport has gotten a little busy to have these little Cesnas etc. flying around it.

Sounds scary.

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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3 Comments

Hey September 13, 2010

jc697: Nice spelling correction obviously people could not have figured it out on their own.

It's not the airplanes that matter but the pilots and the tower that weren't doing there jobs. Obviously someone in the tower was eating donuts and the pilot of the Cessna was not paying attention. The Lear pilot was the only one on the ball in this case. Saw it myself from Arden. I will say, some of these old timers need to have their reflexes checked from time to time.

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Sean September 13, 2010

I've flown in and around Santa Monica, Van Nuys, Charleston International, etc. in single engine prop planes mixing it up with jets. That's what ATC is for. Flying different ac types at a controlled airport shouldn't be an issue.

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jc697 September 13, 2010

It's Lear (not "leer"), and Cessna (not "Cesnas"). Sounds like both pilots were looking out the window and made the proper deviation to avoid each other. As far as private aircraft not using AVL, a vast majority of takeoffs and landings are made by private, not commercial or military aircraft.

Scary is folks that know nothing about aviation sending posts about banning "Cesnas" from the airport.

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