Pilot Arrested : Drunk Flying Is Accusation After Rough Landing

A Sylmar pilot was arrested on suspicion of drunk flying after his small plane made erratic approaches to Whiteman Airport in Pacoima and belly-landed with the wheels up, the Los Angeles Police Department reported.

James Lee McCoy, 46, was not injured, and his plane, a single-engine Mooney Mark 21, sustained little damage in the landing about 8:30 Monday night, Sgt. Ken Dionne said.

“He did a basic belly-flop on the runway,” Dionne said. “He made a couple of passes over the airport until he was able to get the plane into the right landing attitude. And, when he finally came down, the landing gear was either locked in the up position or broken, because the wheels were not down.”

Dionne said the Federal Aviation Administration will determine whether there was a malfunction of the landing gear or if McCoy failed to put the wheels down.

Police were called by witnesses who watched the plane make irregular passes over the airport. After it made a belly-landing, they ran to the downed craft to see if the pilot was hurt. Dionne said they reported a strong odor of alcohol from McCoy.

Officers who answered the call found a .25-caliber pistol and a small amount of what was believed to be marijuana in the plane, Dionne said.

McCoy was arrested on suspicion of flying under the influence of alcohol, a misdemeanor. Dionne said charges relating to the weapon and possible marijuana possession could be filed later. Police did not release the results of a blood-alcohol test given McCoy.

McCoy was released from the Van Nuys Division Jail on Tuesday morning. He could not be reached for comment.

The FAA’s Flight Standards Division is investigating, said Audrey Shutte, operations inspector at the division office in Van Nuys. She declined to elaborate on the investigation or give details about McCoy’s flight.

She said the FAA can revoke or suspend a pilot’s license and impose fines for flying under the influence of alcohol. Federal aviation regulations define a blood-alcohol level of 0.04% as intoxication, less than half the 0.10% standard used for automobile drivers in California.

Whiteman Airport, owned by Los Angeles County, handles about 150,000 flights a year and is home to about 700 aircraft.

On Jan. 24, a pilot whose plane narrowly missed colliding with another plane after taking off from Whiteman was charged with drunk flying after landing at an airport in Oxnard. Ronald Lichnovsky, 44, of North Hollywood, was found guilty of flying under the influence of alcohol. He was sentenced to six months in Ventura County Jail by a municipal judge, who also ordered him to surrender his pilot’s license for a year.

Shutte said the local FAA office does not have a tally of drunk-flying incidents. But, she said, McCoy and Lichnovsky are the only pilots she can recall being arrested for that offense in the San Fernando Valley area.

“This sort of thing is quite rare, fortunately,” she said.