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IL Clipper pilot charged for landing on golf course

Speedo

Speedo

FOUNDER
TN
Today's Chicago Tribune ran a brief article about an IL Clipper pilot who landed on a golf course fairway in northwest suburban Chicago. It was not an emergency: he was dropping his son off for a tennis lesson. The plane was equipped with skis and the fairway was snow-covered.

The Lake County state's attorney charged the pilot with reckless conduct and endangering the life or health of a child.

I have many thoughts about this: this may not have been particularly reckless or dangerous - there are plenty of places in suburban Chicago that look like they'd make good landing strips (although I don't think the pilot could have avoided overflying some residential neighborhoods while making his landing approach); the pilot appears to have approached the landing conservatively - he made two passes before landing; I'd like to see AOPA file an amicus brief; I'd like to see the State's Attorney get acquainted with safe off-airport ops.

I hate to read about situations like this, because I think it will lead to more limitations in what we can do with our planes.

Eric
 
If that's called 'reckless conduct', I wonder what they would call a SC water skiing up to a gravel bar and stopping in 50 feet? :angel:
 
the problem with this is that perception is reality for too many folks. Although we all know it was a non-event those in the law enforcement community who got the 911 call from un-knowing residents probably did not think it was such a "Non-event". Hopefully they will see that what he did while maybe not legal locally was completely thought out and safe. I think all he really needed was permission from the landowner. right?
 
Sounds more like bad judgment than reckless endangerment. Perception is everything these days and if all involved are not pilots or at least knowledgeable, unusual flying activities will appear to be dangerous. I would guess much of the guy's defense will hinge on whether he had permission to use the fairway as a landing strip. If not, he may be in a bit of a bind. It is one thing to land in a pasture, but quite another to land intentionally on the high dollar, well-developed real estate of a country club without somebody's okay.
 
Anybody know what the general rules are for landing on your own property? I have a nice pasture located parallel to a creek that has good approaches with prevailing winds.
Keeline
 
Did the FAA take any action against this guy?I'd be interested to know what their take on it is.Did he actually break any local aviation laws?I could see the golf course filing trespass charges.
There are lots of places I have looked over as nice spots to land but I know the same type of thing would happen.
Even landing on a frozen lake here would cause a commotion just because people are not used to seeing it done so it must be wrong.

Bill
 
People watch too many movies.

A good friend of mine was bringing my wife home from JNU in his 185 one day. The airport was socked in, but the road was wide open. So, he landed on the road. Well, since no one had done that in 10 years or so, in come the phone calls.

Still legal to land on a public road in Alaska, as far as I know.:D

gb
 
Perception is the operative word here. I used to instruct at a grass strip here on LI. It is 51 acres of open space in the middle of Suburbia. One day a 172 landed. Someone passing on the highway on the other side of the tree line saw a "little airplane" disappear behind the trees. They called 911. First the manager of ISP, the class C airport 3 miles away called and said "What's going on?" I said nothing, but a 172 just landed. By the time I hung up the phone, the county Police arrived. By the time I finished telling them nothing happened, the fire truck showed up. Then after I convinced them things were ok, I locked the gate and headed home. About half a mile up the road, the Channel 12 news satellite truck passed me headed to the airport. No need for an ELT around here!

This used to happen about once a month.

Rich
 
I agree, it's perceptions that are the problem. Maybe it's more correct to say mis-perceptions - about what's legal and safe, about who has jurisdiction, etc. We need an outreach program to educate local law enforcement and local DAs so they don't overreach their bounds and so they don't over react.

Maybe AOPA can develop a program that we can deliver.

My concern is that, due to ignorance and a growing nanny state mentality, we will gradually lose the opportunity to land off airport because of DAs who think it is child endangerment to land your ski-equipped plane on a snow-covered patch of ground when your kid's in the back seat.
 
Laurens, Iowa used to have a golf course and airport together. I never landed but the grass strip looked like it was also a fairway.
 
pa12_pilot said:
I agree, it's perceptions that are the problem. Maybe it's more correct to say mis-perceptions - about what's legal and safe, about who has jurisdiction, etc. We need an outreach program to educate local law enforcement and local DAs so they don't overreach their bounds and so they don't over react.

Maybe AOPA can develop a program that we can deliver.

My concern is that, due to ignorance and a growing nanny state mentality, we will gradually lose the opportunity to land off airport because of DAs who think it is child endangerment to land your ski-equipped plane on a snow-covered patch of ground when your kid's in the back seat.
Click to expand...

I think that we have several hundred members here who could offer to volunteer as Expert Witnesses in support of a defense that landing a ski-equipped airplane on snow is not "reckless endangerment". (putting millions of kids on school buses without seat belts is reckless endangerment, but I digress). I personally don't consider myself an expert, but I think collectively, we could help. And should.

Where do I sign up?
 
Off the record I wouldn’t consider myself to be an expert witness but nearly all of the “expert witnesses” I’ve had the privy of meeting have been entirely self proclaimed, therefore, why ought not we to proclaim the same? I’d be happy to send a notarized letter to whomever applicable and relevant. Just need an address.

It’s obvious to me that this guy is a good dad. There are a pile of parents out there that don’t care at all about their kids let alone bringing them to a tennis lesson. The people that should be criminally charged are the people that breed like rats and let their kids run the streets.

Perhaps the kid’s dad would be better suited if I donated some money to his legal defense :help and kept my opinions out of it…

Anybody have the guy’s name?

Lippy
:stupid
 
My guess is he landed without permission and the golf course made a stink about it. Entirely within their right. In our society today...they slap on all the charges they can think of in hopes that at least one will stick.

If he did in fact land without permission...he didn't do general aviation any favors. Sure hope I'm wrong!

cafi
 
I believe he had to dismantle the plane and truck it out as well. A similar thread on TreeTop Fliers discussed it at length.

Jim
 
Maybe one of the resident attorneys will correct me, but I don't believe a criminal trespass occurs unless you refuse to leave when asked. The golf course may have a damage claim but that's a civil matter. As for the charges made, I'd take that fight if I were the pilot providing the pilot was properly certificated and the airplane was legally airworthy at the time. We all assume he and the airplane were legal. That the prosecutor filed these charges makes me wonder whether that's the case.

Stewart
 
As was mentioned earlier, people who don't fly are horribly ignorant of those of us who do. They apply their limited knowledge of driving to aviation and always assume the worst. This is always a recipe for disaster and does none of us any good. Locally, a couple of pilots at a county airport took it upon themselves to roll out a decent grass strip along side the paved one so that they could land their various Cubs and such on grass whenever they felt like it. Everything was fine until a nonflying nitwit from the airport authority found out and called in the law because, in his opinion, to land on grass rather than asphalt is dangerous. Someone recently wondered in a different post how it can be that people sipping lattes in New York City can make policy effecting hunters in Alaska; the same is true for nonfliers making policy that impacts aircraft owners and pilots. It makes no sense, but it happens every day.
 
When I was in high school, I would land on the golf course a few blocks from the school and walk to class.
 
cafi19 said:
My guess is he landed without permission and the golf course made a stink about it. Entirely within their right. In our society today...they slap on all the charges they can think of in hopes that at least one will stick.

If he did in fact land without permission...he didn't do general aviation any favors. Sure hope I'm wrong!

cafi
Click to expand...

The newspaper article did not state anything about the golf course making a stink. It reported "XXX XXX, 65, flew his Piper Clipper to Crane's Landing Golf Course in Lincolnshire on March 1, alarming motorists who saw the four-seater circle twice before it glided on skis to a stop on the snow-covered seventh fairway, about 2 feet south of Illinois Highway 22. No one was injured."

So, he makes a safe landing,apparently operating his plane within its limits and his limits, and still gets charged with endangering the life or health of a child.

We need to find an effective way to counter this trend, or we're going to lose the ability to land off airport. If that happens we might as well be flying C-172s.
 
Charges stand in Ill. pilot's golf-course landing
Associated Press
9:02 AM CDT, August 16, 2008
WAUKEGAN, Ill. - A judge has refused to dismiss criminal charges against a pilot who landed his four-seat airplane on a golf course to make sure his 14-year-old son arrived on time for a tennis lesson.

Lake County Judge Charles Johnson upheld the charges Friday against 65-year-old Robert Kadera of Lake Villa.

Kadera is charged with reckless conduct and endangering the life of a child for the March 1st incident.

Buffalo Grove attorney Judith Bethge had told the judge the charges were vague and her client did nothing to endanger his son. She is seeking to suppress statements made by Kadera saying he was illegally placed under arrest. The judge will hear arguments on that motion September 12th.



Kadera faces up to one year in jail.
 
Can anyone point me to and Federal regulations, FAR's or other that concern landing a plane off airport? Obviously theres always local rules that apply but ive never read anything from the feds. Ive always considered landing on a farm I worked on but never could get a solid answer on this. It also is within our friendly DC ADIZ, further complicating things. (I am looking forward to the conversation filing that ADIZ flight plan however - "destination: Work." Wonder what the briefer would say to that one. Not common in MD like it is up in AK.)
 
Grizzly 1

Grant said:
the problem with this is that perception is reality for too many folks. Although we all know it was a non-event those in the law enforcement community who got the 911 call from un-knowing residents probably did not think it was such a "Non-event". Hopefully they will see that what he did while maybe not legal locally was completely thought out and safe. I think all he really needed was permission from the landowner. right?
Click to expand...

If he wasn't flying where he shouldn't have been, all he needed was permission of the landowner. Period.

Presuming, of course, that he wasn't flying in such a manner as to endanger the lives or property of others . . . . .

Grizzly 1
 
golf course

Very sad. When I was a kid my father landed Santa Claus every year on the North Reading MA golf course for the church fair. Usually in the Stearman but; when snow covered the ground, in the 85 J-3 on skis. I've had 3 engine failures over the years which found me on the fairways. Remember, Mayor Daly of Chicago hates airplanes, so if he bulldozes a real airport at night, what can you expect at a golf course.
The father is a wonderful man, giving his kid opportunities, just like my father gave me. What a bunch of crap that they prosecute for child endangerment? Idiots. Let's all write to the newspaper scolding the idiot prosecutor. I can;t do it from here -I'm in Albania towing banners. This morning I gave rides in a PA-18 to a youngster and to 2 soldiers who had never, ever been in a plane, nor are likely to ever have the chance. I then took 20 neighborhood kids and put them in the cockpit, one at a time. Flying here from an old Mig and Yak training field. 12,000 feet of scrubby grass. Auto fuel and 42 degrees Centigrade in the sun. Engine still runs. No vapor lock, and the only cops in sight were the ones we stopped and gave some gas to so they could run the police car.

Endangerment! &*(%^ What idiots!
 
The FAR's make no reference to off airport landings. Obviously, if you are involved in an accident because you landed someplace inappropriate for landing that aircraft, they might consider citing you for careless and reckless.

On the other hand, note that the FAR pertaining to minimum safe altitudes clearly in oriented toward protecting people and property on the surface, NOT people in the airplane:

§ 91.119 Minimum safe altitudes: General.
Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes:

(a) Anywhere. An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.

Frankly, if I were this guy and his attorney, I'd be getting FAA Legal involved in this one. If the FAA didn't get their underwear in a knot on this deal, it's ridiculous for people with no knowledge of aviation to pursue this.

And, this could set a VERY bad precedent for general aviation.

MTV
 
gbflyer said:
People watch too many movies.

A good friend of mine was bringing my wife home from JNU in his 185 one day. The airport was socked in, but the road was wide open. So, he landed on the road. Well, since no one had done that in 10 years or so, in come the phone calls.

Still legal to land on a public road in Alaska, as far as I know.:D

gb
Click to expand...

Last time I looked, landing on the roads in Alaska was legal only for emergency purposes. Yeah, I know that a few of Alaska's Registered Guides routinely used the roads. It just wasn't legal . . . . .

Grizzly 1
 
The state of WA says the min age for a passenger on the back of a motorcycle is 5, so i guess they don't consider this to be endangerment. However airplanes seem to be in another league somehow. This bust on the golf course is because they feel they must do something, even if its wrong, because someone complained.
 
The judge's requiring that he have no contact with the resort might suggest that there was a bit of a "discussion" after his landing there...

Sounds like cooler heads prevailed at least in the prosecuter's office. I sure didn't see how you could make those original charges stand.

Nonetheless, it's too bad this had to even wind up in court.

MTV
 
mvivion said:
The judge's requiring that he have no contact with the resort might suggest that there was a bit of a "discussion" after his landing there...

Sounds like cooler heads prevailed at least in the prosecuter's office. I sure didn't see how you could make those original charges stand.

Nonetheless, it's too bad this had to even wind up in court.

MTV
Click to expand...

No Mike,

Sounds like the DA plead it out to save time. Cooler heads would have suggested that the pilot say he would not do it again, make the $500 donation and drop all charges...

People have to be willing to fight these all the way. It is expensive, yes, but as a citizen if you allow the DA's of the world to push this stupid stuff, we get more and more liberties taken away by our own inaction.

Sorry, I just see this stuff and it makes me :bad-words: :bad-words: :bad-words:
 
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