Veteran Pilot Accused of Reckless Stunt Flying

A veteran Vietnam War combat pilot was accused by Los Angeles City Atty. James Hahn on Wednesday of careless and reckless flying for allegedly performing stunts too close to a commuter airliner in a World War II fighter plane over Woodland Hills.

Lockheed Corp. test pilot Skip James Holm, 43, is accused of a misdemeanor criminal violation in connection with the Jan. 29 incident in which the pilot of a twin-engine Skywest Metroliner reported that Holm’s borrowed P-51 Mustang flew up directly in front of him and did aerobatics in and out of the clouds.

Hahn said Skywest pilot Tim Baker, who had been on instrument approach to Burbank Airport with a co-pilot and three passengers, feared a collision and asked the tower’s permission to abort the landing to make a wide turn away from the Mustang.

‘Pilots Who Menace Us All’

The city attorney commended Baker, his co-pilot and Skywest President Jerry C. Atkin for their cooperation in the investigation, saying, “We need this type of help to crack down on irresponsible pilots who menace us all with unsafe flying in the skies over Los Angeles.”

Holm, who flew stunts for the movie “The Right Stuff,” had no comment when told of the city attorney’s action. He did, however, say he planned to appeal a move by the Federal Aviation Administration to suspend his flying certificate for six months as a result of the incident.

“I still don’t feel I did anything wrong,” Holm said. “I haven’t changed my mind any. This is probably the first case that one pilot turned another one in. I was in the correct place, doing the correct thing. There was no reason not to be doing what I was doing.”

When he was notified by the FAA last month of the proposed license suspension, Holm contended that the two planes were never closer than a mile and said they were flying in different directions so there was no danger of a collision. He called the action by the commuter plane pilot “a little premature. . . .”

Arraignment Set

If convicted, Holm could face a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine. He could also be banned from flying for a year. He is to be arraigned on April 15 in Van Nuys Municipal Court.

Earlier this month, FAA chief Donald Engen criticized Hahn for investigating the actions of private pilots, contending that it might hamper the federal agency’s own inquiries by discouraging fliers from cooperating with FAA officials.

But Hahn said Wednesday that the dispute was prompted by his office’s involvement in the case of a private plane that strayed into the Los Angeles International Airport terminal control area (TCA) just before another small plane collided with an Aeromexico DC-9 over Cerritos last Aug. 31. The crash took 82 lives.

Hahn’s office dropped that criminal investigation last week after investigators concluded that the errant plane’s pilot was trying his best to get out of the restricted air space.

‘Serious Violation’

Hahn said: “We tried to make it clear to the FAA that we weren’t trying to reinvestigate that tragedy. It just seemed to us there could have been a serious (criminal) violation.” He noted that his office had never before poked into such a TCA case.

FAA regional counsel DeWitte T. Lawson Jr. said Wednesday that the FAA’s Western regional office and the city attorney’s office had agreed in principle that the city would not prosecute TCA violations.

“However,” Lawson added, “in the spirit of cooperation and the principle of comity, the FAA will assist the city attorney’s office in the criminal prosecution of aggravated violations such as drunk flying, very low beach buzzing and the like.”

Hahn said his office has been filing cases against alleged reckless or drunken fliers for years. “What we’re talking about here,” he said, speaking of the Holm case, “is violation of state law; reckless flying, where a pilot has apparent disregard for the safety of others.”