Experimental Plane Lands at Closed Base

A pilot made an emergency landing Sunday evening at the closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, touching his plane down on a darkened runway and then calling Orange County sheriff’s officials to let them know what had happened.

En route to Fullerton Municipal Airport, Bradley Hale noticed an emergency light come on in his single-engine experimental plane called a “Dragonfly.”

Hale, of La Palma, did not think he could reach either Fullerton or John Wayne Airport, so he taxied down El Toro’s 16R runway shortly before 7:30 p.m. El Toro has been closed since July 1999, and sheriff’s Lt. Larry Abbott said the runways were unlit and the air-control tower empty.

After landing, Hale called family members to pick him up and then notified sheriff’s officials he had left his aircraft at the base.

Hale told officials that he will either try to fix the plane and fly it or will truck it home.

Abbot said he is not sure if the county or Navy has the authority to give Hale permission to return to the base and retrieve his plane.

Abbott said he felt most would agree that landing at El Toro was “the safe thing to do.”