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ROY — Officials say you shouldn’t bank on any major changes coming to the Ogden airport, even after a Roy plane crash that left a 64-year-old man dead.
The deadly small plane crash killed David Goode, the pilot of the two-engine plane and the only person on board. Goode was the founder of Goode Skis in Ogden.
No one in the townhome neighborhood where the plane went down was hurt.
Investigating the Roy plane crash
Investigators say Goode took off from SkyPark Airport in Woods Cross around 3:00 p.m. and was on his way to Ogden-Hinckley Airport.
Fragments of the mangled plane remain near the townhouse it struck, NTSB investigating @kslnewsradiopic.twitter.com/SXOsguS43j
— Nick Wyatt (@NickWyattNews) January 16, 2020
The fatal accident is the second plane crash around Ogden-Hinckley Airport in the past three months. On November 17, a single-engine plane crashed on Interstate 15 and seriously injured both occupants.
With both accidents fresh in mind, some residents near the airport have grown concerned about their safety.
But don’t expect changes to Ogden’s airport anytime soon.
No changes likely at Ogden airport
Officials are quick to note that air travel remains extremely safe overall, but when something goes wrong, they say, it can easily turn fatal.
“Aviation is unforgiving,” said airport manager Bryant Garrett. “You can’t get out and push when you have a failure.”
Many of the planes coming in and out of the airport are piloted by individuals that don’t fly full-time, but Garrett says that shouldn’t be a concern. Those individuals, like anyone else who is compensated to fly, have to pass the same training and possess the same skills. According to him, it’s not easy to pin down a problem and often these accidents have to be evaluated case-by-case.
“It could be the pilot, it could be the aircraft, it could be components of the aircraft [or] it could be the weather,” he said.
What about traffic patterns?
When it comes to the topic of air traffic patterns, Garrett says it isn’t their decision to make. The airport has pilots fly in and out in accordance with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulated patterns, which take into account their runway structure and wind patterns. Additionally, if the airport were to initiate some change, it wouldn’t be their call to make. Instead, that procedure would be filtered through the FAA.
“There isn’t an easy change that says, hey, if we do this it’ll never happen again,” says Garrett.
Nonetheless, he appreciates the concern of nearby residents and is able to sympathize with their situation.
“If I had an aircraft that crashed in my backyard, then yeah, I would be kind of concerned as well,” says Garrett.
The Roy Police Department issued a statement about the crash on Thursday.
