Pilot in Stunt Case May Get Wings Clipped

Federal aviation officials said Monday that they plan to suspend for 180 days the license of a top test pilot accused last month of performing stunts in a World War II fighter plane that posed a “collision hazard” to a commuter airliner.

The Federal Aviation Administration identified the accused flier as Skip J. Holm, a decorated Vietnam combat pilot who flew stunts for the movie, “The Right Stuff,” and works in Lockheed Corp.’s classified projects section.

Piloting a P-51C Mustang on Jan. 29, Holm allegedly performed a series of “spiraling and rolling maneuvers” and came within half a mile of a twin-engine Skywest Metroliner that was on an instrument-landing approach to Burbank Airport, FAA officials said.

A Skywest spokesman, Dan Rymer, reported the Mustang came “close enough to startle the (Metroliner’s) crew. The P-51 climbed vertically from about 4,500 feet, did a full roll at 5,300, then dove out of sight through a cloud bank. . . . Thirty seconds later, our pilot saw it rolling and climbing back up through the cloud deck, and then spiraling back down through it again.”

Skywest Flight 1606, carrying three passengers and a two-man crew, “flew a detour” to avoid the P-51 and landed uneventfully, Rymer said.

The FAA’s regional counsel, DeWitte T. Lawson Jr., last week sent Holm a “notice of proposed certificate action,” accusing him of performing acrobatics over a heavily populated area and of operating “an aircraft so close to another aircraft as to create a collision hazard.”

“Your operation . . . was careless or reckless so as to endanger the life and property of another,” the notice stated.

Has 15 Days to Respond

Holm, 43, has 15 days to respond to the agency’s allegations. Meanwhile, he can continue flying.

On Monday, he denied any wrongdoing and said he plans to appeal the FAA’s action. Holm said he had a clear view of the Metroliner while he was in the air that day and never flew closer than one mile to it.

“I would probably agree that there would have been the potential for a midair if the airplanes had been flying head-on,” Holm said. “But we were flying 90 degrees in different directions. I think the airline guys were just a little premature in calling it what they did.”

As for allegations that he was doing spirals and rolls in the high-performance, single-engine Mustang, Holm said, “I was just taking the airplane up to warm it up.”

“I don’t blame the FAA for this,” he added. “ . . . I suppose it’s their job to crucify people.”

Could Face Jail Term

Holm’s alleged violations, meanwhile, remain under criminal investigation by the Los Angeles city attorney. If found guilty of reckless flying, Holm could face as much as six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

FAA records show that in 1985, Holm paid a $950 fine after he was accused of performing stunts without proper permits at an air show in Bakersfield the year before. Holm was flying a F-86 jet fighter at the time.

He said Monday that he was asked to stunt-fly at the Bakersfield air show by an FAA official who was attending the event. That official, however, died of a heart attack before Holm could defend himself against charges raised by others from the agency who were present that day, Holm said.

“I paid the fine to get them off my back,” Holm said. “I’d go back to combat any day if I could leave these administrators to themselves.”

A member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, Holm spent 20 years in the Air Force and served three tours of duty flying fighter-bombers in Vietnam where, he said, he logged “almost more combat time than anybody.”