A small plane made a hard landing Friday at the Santa Barbara Airport, in an incident that temporarily closed one of the facility’s secondary runways.
A small plane made a hard landing Friday at the Santa Barbara Airport, in an incident that temporarily closed one of the facility’s secondary runways. The pilot was uninjured. (Santa Barbara City Fire Department photo)

A small plane made a hard landing at the Santa Barbara Airport on Friday in an incident that temporarily closed one of the facility’s secondary runways, according to the Santa Barbara City Fire Department.

At about 11:20 a.m., personnel in the airport tower observed a single-engine Piper Czech Sport landing on Runway 15-right, fire Battalion Chief Jon Turner told Noozhawk.

“The plane made a rough landing, and came to an abrupt stop, nose down,” Turner said.

The pilot, whose name was not released, was not injured, Turner said, and was able to extricate himself from the aircraft, which is registered out of Santa Monica.

Airport operations were shut down for about 25 minutes, Turner said, and the affected runway was closed for about two hours.

Runway 15-Right is one of two that run north-south, and are mostly used by smaller aircraft. The longer main runway — 7/25 — runs east-west.

The incident was under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.