Description
Here is the description of this image, as written in an email from Craig Muhonen on 11/4/22:
"24 NTSB reports on this airport since 1985. I have copies of them. well this is a slightly different record of those events, the picture is from 1984, when the hangers were being built, and it shows the first “building” on mountain village, was a 23 story monstrosity,
only to bring in their skiers “right down the runway”, to the Doral hotel and spa…ha..
and one perfect little ski area.
Most of these crashes were “stall/spins” or uncontrolled into terrain , of perfectly good airplanes, but in high density altitudes, with inexperienced mountain pilots,
and no real, “clear air turbulence reports” from the ground, things can get crazy in a heart beat.
The yellow crosses are single plane fatal accidents. The blue crosses are “should have been kilt,” accidents,one where a Mexican jet passenger plane, crashed into a snow plow, during a snow storm, at night, at a “closed airport!!” (8 minutes prior)WOW. They clipped a wing off and managed to slide to a stop and lucky no fire, where the passengers, and the poor snow plow driver, all had “shi* their pants,
(adrenaline is brown)but the two Mexican Pilots were just glad,that they could salvage their “cargo”.
The other blue cross was a Cessna flying into a tree, sheering his right wing off, but walked away with a big TBI, and no memory of the actual crash, of him “flying his airplane ALL the way to a crash landing”.
NTSB said that he was trying to do a “go a round”, but I saw him, his engine was dead and he picked a place to “land” that saved his life, and possibly others on the ground if he had stall/spun into the subdivision. 32 years later a pilot did crash his airplane into the subdivision in Jeff Campbell’s back yard just missing his house.
The white cross is for a little girl, Palomar or Paloma ? !0 years old?, 1985-86, who was allowed to play in the hanger, and died when an “in a hurry” airport attendant got in a Tug, and without checking (because she had crawled under to retrieve her ball) drove off, squashing her to death in a bloody mess.
I happened to be plumbing in the hanger that day, and it was bad, I got out of there quickly.
Still can’t find any record of her death or where she was buried, but I remember that her parents were managers there so….."
--Taken 11/16/22 from Craig Muhonen's email.
