Full-Scale Emergency

A Riverside pilot made an emergency landing Wednesday morning on an abandoned airstrip in Mile Square Regional Park, unintentionally adding fuel to an ongoing battle between county supervisors who want to expand the Fountain Valley park’s golf course and model-plane enthusiasts who want the strip to stay.

Mike Gorman, the 36-year-old pilot of the 1959 Cessna 182, had other concerns, like how to get his plane off the hobbyists’ airstrip and back to Flabob Airport in Riverside.

“The FAA isn’t exactly cheering us on to fly it out,” he said, gesturing to the two solemn-faced representatives of the Federal Aviation Administration who were peering into the small two-seater. A long haul back home on a flatbed today appeared to be the only option after the craft remained at the park overnight Wednesday under guard.

The trouble was “engine stuff,” Gorman said. His mechanic, who raced over from Riverside, finally found a broken sparkplug, which indicated pretty serious engine stuff.

An aerial photographer, Gorman had departed Flabob about 10 a.m. and within the hour felt the engine start to sputter while he was sailing 1,300 feet above Beach Boulevard and the San Diego Freeway.

Losing about 100 feet of altitude per minute, he called John Wayne Airport and started heading over, but, after doing some quick math, realized that he wouldn’t make it. He recalled flying his own model planes in the park as a boy and decided to give it a shot. “John Wayne told me they couldn’t authorize that,” he said with a laugh.

A police helicopter guided him down and he was quickly surrounded by police, park rangers, firefighters and some plane hobbyists, who had been told by the booming helicopter’s loudspeaker to land their own little planes on the double to clear the air space.

Gorman was grateful for the clear blue sky and the relative emptiness of the strip. “I saw one guy walking his dog and then a truck pulled out and I thought, ‘Oh, great,’ ” he said.

John McDonald, a 50-year-old model plane enthusiast from Orange, also saw the plane land. He could not help rubbing his hands just a bit over the potential weight the incident might give to his group’s lawsuit over the expanded golf course.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors decided last year to create a golf course in the park’s 137-acre center and touched off a controversy that is still brewing in court and letters to local newspapers.

“If they had had a golf course here today, this guy would have been in trouble,” McDonald said. “He could have landed on a body.”

Just a few days later, and Gorman might have landed on some of the 25,000 Boys Scouts who will congregating there Friday for their annual jamboree.

A photo crew from McMullen Argus Publishing Inc. had laid claim to the strip for the afternoon, with permits and all. Their plans for the “set” were also delayed a bit by the unplanned landing, although everyone took it in good stride.

“We were going to be shooting a cover for Electric Car magazine today, and I certainly didn’t expect to see a plane here,” said Keith Buglewicz, special publications editor for McMullen. “I thought our biggest problem would be rain.”

As the hours wore on, the crew simply drove the shiny new electric cars to other parts of the blacktop and tried to ignore the fracas around the plane.

The first crew member to arrive, James Puckett of George’s Towing was unloading a sporty red GM EV1, for the shoot when he heard the commotion in the sky and saw the plane land.

“It just barely touched the edge of asphalt,” he said. “It just made it. I was surprised. I didn’t think they landed planes here anymore.”

Well, they don’t. At least not real planes.

But model plane hobbyists have been flying their remote-control craft from the strips around the park’s triangular center for years.

Park Maintenance Supervisor Rene Guzman said the strip, which dates back to World War II or more, was a military heliport until the park opened in 1972.

Gorman, who has been flying for 15 years, insisted that his bird simply does not have problems like this.

“This will never happen to me again,” he said decisively.