FAA: Surviving Midair Bumping ‘Miraculous’

A federal investigator Monday interviewed two pilots involved in a midair “bumping” mishap over Westminster on Sunday night, an incident that aviation experts say the men from San Bernardino County were fortunate to survive.

“They were very lucky,” said Rod Propst, manager of Fullerton Airport.

Michael F. Hartman, 40, of Montclair was flying his single-engine Cessna 172 in formation behind a Pitts Special S-1S piloted by Martin W. Kusch, 33, of Rancho Cucamonga, investigators said. The two collided about 6:50 p.m. a few miles southwest of Disneyland.

The pilots radioed the Fullerton Airport tower, declaring an emergency. They then flew to Fullerton and circled the airport to give fire engines and rescue trucks time to position themselves on the runway before they tried to land.

Neither Hartman or Kusch returned calls Monday.

The propeller on Hartman’s Cessna was damaged and the tail section--the vertical stabilizer, or rudder--of Kusch’s single-engine, single-seat craft was sliced.

“There were no injuries, and that’s miraculous,” said Jerry Snyder, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Los Angeles. “But it’s not like hitting the tail with a club. The propeller could slice through the stabilizer without knocking [the plane] out of the air.”

It was unclear Monday which pilot was at fault.

The FAA investigator handling the matter declined to discuss the incident. A report will be issued in a few weeks, he said.

The damaged planes are grounded at Fullerton Airport.

If the Cessna propeller had sliced “another six or eight inches into the tail” of Kusch’s plane, Propst said, “then this would have been a different scenario.”