Emergency crews responded Tuesday afternoon to a single-engine plane that crashed at the Santa Barbara Airport while attempting to make an emergency landing.
Two people on board the Cirrus aircraft escaped injury in the mishap, according to Capt. Gary Pitney of the Santa Barbara City Fire Department.
The plane — with a student pilot and instructor on board — was preparing to touch down on one of the airport’s shorter north-south runways at about 12:20 p.m. when it experienced a throttle malfunction that prevented slowing the engine, Pitney said.
At that point, the instructor took over the controls, and made the decision to land the plane on Runway 25, which runs east-west and is considerably longer, Pitney said.
The plane, which sustained damage to its landing gear, came to rest on the runway overrun, about 300 feet short of a creek and east of Los Carneros Road, Pitney said, adding that the pilot was able to stop the engine by cutting off the fuel supply.
The alert came in at 12:19 p.m. and the airport’s Station 8 fire crews responded to the grass at the end of the runway, airport marketing coordinator Lynn Houston said.
There was very minor damage to the landing gear and there were no delays caused by the short runway closure, she said.
Houston confirmed it was a local plane and there will be a National Transportation Safety Board investigation of the incident.
Noozhawk News Editor Giana Magnoli reported from the scene.
— Noozhawk executive editor Tom Bolton can be reached at tbolton@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
