Pilot Lands on Buena Park Street

A single-engine Cessna 150 made an emergency landing Wednesday evening on a residential street in Buena Park, rattling the nerves of residents but causing no major injuries or damage.

Dan Hickman thought that someone had rammed into his new PT Cruiser when he heard the huge bang about 6:40 p.m.

“I was inside and just heard the big noise--bang!--and wondered what had happened,” Hickman said. “So I ran out, looked at my car and saw nothing. Then I looked down a little further and saw a plane tilted up with its nose down.”

In fact, the two-seater craft had crash-landed in the 8200 block of Fox Hills Avenue in front of Hickman’s house. The crash moderately damaged the plane’s nose and a neighbor’s brick mailbox. The pilot suffered cuts and scratches but walked away from the crash.

Lots of neighbors were shaken, Hickman said. “My 12-year-old daughter had just come home from across the street,” he said. “If she’d been out there five minutes later she could have been hit.”

Sgt. Richard Pena, a Buena Park Police Department spokesman, said the pilot, Bryan Gerdes, 33, of Bakersfield, experienced mechanical problems while en route to Fullerton Municipal Airport from Bakersfield.

Spotting Gordon H. Beatty Elementary School, he circled, hoping to land there. But “he saw that he couldn’t make it, made a loop, came around and saw a wide street,” Pena said.

“I tried to make it without hitting anyone,” Gerdes said. “I’m just glad that only the plane was destroyed.”