Jet Hit on Tampa Taxiway; Pilot of Light Plane Killed

A pilot commuting to work Thursday morning in his private plane missed a fog-shrouded runway, hit a Pan Am jetliner on a taxiway and was killed when his aircraft burst into flames.

Pan American World Airways Flight 301, a Boeing 727 with 17 passengers and a crew of six aboard, was preparing to take off for Miami when the twin-engine Piper hurtled into and under its nose, officials at Tampa International Airport said.

No Injuries on Jet

No one aboard the jetliner was reported injured by the impact, but four passengers suffered minor injuries in the emergency evacuation that followed.

The small plane was flown by William S. Bain, 56, an Eastern Airlines captain.

Officials said that more deaths might have resulted if the pilot of the 727, Capt. Edwin Lunsford, had not spotted the approaching plane and swerved to avoid a head-on collision.

“That maneuver . . . prevented what could have been a much more serious accident,” Pan Am spokesman Alan Loflin said.

Airport officials reported visibility at a little more than 100 yards when the collision occurred.

Tim Maslonek, a baggage handler with an airport service company, said that he was on a shuttle bus listening to the flight operations radio when he heard air controllers clear the Pan Am pilot for takeoff and forbid the Piper to land.

But Jack Barker, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Atlanta, denied the report, saying that controllers had given Bain approval to land.

“He was given clearance to land,” Barker said. “Controllers give clearance when no other planes are on the runway, and there was no other plane on the runway.”

Eastern spokesman Glenn Parsons said that Bain was commuting from his home at North Fort Myers to fly Eastern Flight 164, scheduled to leave Tampa for Newark, N.J., at 8:05 a.m., exactly an hour after the accident.

“He has had an excellent record with Eastern,” Parsons said. “He was an outstanding pilot and never had any problems of any kind whatsoever.”

Airport spokesman Paul MacAlester said that the collision ripped a hole in the underside of the jet, in back of the nose and under the cockpit. The small plane then careened down the side of the jet, leaving its left engine embedded in the front of the larger plane.